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Baptism of the Ages. Frontispiece. 

Page 29. 

BAPTISTERY OF BISHOP PAULINUS. 



THE BAPTISM 



OP THE 



Ages and of the iNations. 



BY 



WILLIAM CATHCART, D.D., 

AUTHOR OP "the PAPAL SYSTEM," AND OF "THE BAPTISTS 
AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION." 



PHILADELPHIA : 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
1420 CHESTNUT STREET. 



^ V 



^Nl^ 



w 



c^-'^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by the 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Slereotypers and fiJlectrotypers^ Philada, 



PEEFAOE 



The primary object which claimed the attentioD 
of the writer of this little work when he began its 
preparation was to secure and record reliable infor- 
mation about the mode of baptism used by the great 
missionaries who planted Christianity among the 
pagan communities now constituting the chief na- 
tions of the earth. How did St. Remigius baptize 
Clovis and his three thousand soldiers? How did 
St. Patrick baptize the Irish ? How did St. Augus- 
tine baptize King Ethelbert and ten thousand of his 
subjects ? How did Paulinus baptize the thronging 
thousands of Englishmen whom he was the means 
of converting in Northumberland ? How did Boni- 
face baptize his hundred thousand Germans ? How 
did St. Anschar baptize the Scandinavians? How 
were the whole people of KiefF baptized w^hen their 
Russian master, Vladimir the Great, just rescued 
from heathenism, ordered them to become Christians^ 
The work has expanded beyond the original plan, 
and it is chiefly a book of facts and baptismal testi- 
monies. 



mTEODTJOTIOK 



The name of the work, " The Baptism op the 
Ages and of the Nations," has been chosen be- 
cause it describes its contents. Its pages afford 
ample evidence that for twelve centuries immersion 
was the baptism of all Christian countries, whether 
the climate was bitterly cold or intensely hot, and 
that it is the baptism of about a fourth part of all 
who bear the Christian name to-day. And the 
author has by no means exhausted this evidence by 
the large amount of it placed before his readers. 

The important portions of this work were writ- 
ten by the Latin and Greek Fathers, by historians, 
schoolmen, monks, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, 
and popes of the Roman Catholic Church — men 
who are ranked among her most honored sons and 
holiest saints — and by eminent clergymen, travellers, 
and other authors of modern Protestant communi- 
ties. In short, all that is valuable in the book 
was written by some of the leading men of all the 
Christian ages, and in a few cases by the inspired 
penmen themselves. 

5 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

No special effort has been made to secure descrip- 
tions of baptism and of baptisms from Greek Chris- 
tian writers, and some valuable testimony from these 
sources has been designedly passed by, because it is 
universally known by well-informed persons that 
immersion is now, and ever has been, the baptism 
of the Greek Church and of all other considerable 
Eastern Christian communities. Nevertheless, every 
part of Christendom is represented in these pages, 
either by creeds, by leading men teaching immer- 
sion, or by the immersion of candidates for bap- 
tism. 

The quotations so frequently used in the follow^- 
iug pages are all sustained by reliable authorities. 

The meaning of "baptizo'^ is never discussed. 
Efforts in that field can add nothing to the results 
already obtained. The sole object of this work is 
to present narratives or descriptions of baptism by 
immersion in all countries — a field largely neglect- 
ed by Baptists. 

The work is divided into geographical, not chrono- 
logical, sections. The baptismal records of each 
country are placed together, and for this reason 
the earliest baptisms are not found on the first pages. 

In common with all regular Baptists, the writer 
firmly believes in salvation hy faith alone — hy faith in 
the merits and imputed ric/hteousness of the glorious 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

Redeemer. But he denies the authority of any being 
outside the eternal throne to alter in any particular, 
or to set aside, any precept ever given by the sov- 
ereign Lamb. As the Roman Catholic wafer without 
the cup is a counterfeit, and not the Lord's Supper 
which it claims to be, so baptism mthout immersion 
is not the baptism the Saviour received in the river 
Jordan. It is a mere human contrivance, with less 
resemblance to Christ's baptism than the Romanist 
wafer bears to the Lord's Supper. This little work 
has been prepared to extend the practice of baptiz- 
ing those only whose sins have been already washed 
away by faith in the Saviour's blood, and who in 
immersion solemnly and symbolically profess their 
burial and resurrection with Christ. 

The writer is greatly indebted to the " Bucknell 
Library " of Crozer Theological Seminary for the 
use of its very valuable collection of the ecclesias- 
tical writings of all ages — literary treasures of the 
highest worth. For facilities in the use of the 
library he is under lasting obligations to his friend 
the honored President of the Seminary, and to the 
other professors. 

He has also received important assistance from 
the noble library of the American Baptist Histori- 
cal Society. 

His grateful acknowledgments are due to the 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

Rev. Dr. A. N. Arnold of Chicago, the Rev. Dr. H. 
Malcom, the Rev. A. J. Rowland, the Rev. Dr. G. 
W. Anderson, the Rev. J. S. Gubelmann, and Alfred 
T. Jones, Esq., editor of The Jewish Record, Phila- 
delphia, and to several other friends in Europe and 
America, for valuable articles and information. 

Praying that the heavenly Head of the militant 
Church, who honored immersion by observing it him- 
self in the river Jordan, may bless this effort to the 
advancement of his gospel, we commit it to the ex- 
amination of all who love the truth as it is in Jesus, 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

TEINE IMMEKSION 5 

ENGLAND. 

The English.— Their Pagan state in 596.— Bertha.— 
Augustine in Kent. — Baptism of the Ten Thousand. 
— Gregory's Letter to Eulogius. — Three witnesses: 
Fuller, Green, Tradition. — The Swale in Kent. — 
Gocelin and the Ten Thousand. — Importance of this 
Baptism. — Baptism of King Edwin and many others. 
— The Spring in York in which it Occurred. — Three 
Thousand Baptized in a Spring at Harbottle. — The 
Statue of Paulinus. — The Crucifix and Inscription. — 
Tradition. — Camden. — The Old Memory. — Paulinus 
Baptizes for Thirty-six Days in the Eiver Glen and 
in the Swale. — He Baptizes a Multitude in the Trent. 
— The Mercians Baptized. — Caedwalia Immersed at 
Home. — Bede and his Baptism. — The Council of 
Celichyth and Immersion. — Fridegod and Immer- 
sion. — Ethelred's Immersion. — Ancient Font. — Anlaf, 
a Royal Bobber, is Immersed. — Lanfranc and Im- 
mersion. — Cardinal Pullus and Immersion. — The 
Christening of Prince Arthur and of the Princess 
Margaret. — Immersion in the time of " Bloody 
Mary.'* — Immersion in 1644. — Immersion in the 
Westminster Assembly of Divines. — Lightfoot's 
Journal. — Coleman. — Marshall. — Westminster Assem- 
bly's Commentary. — Dr. Chalmers. — Cave's Descrip- 



10 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

tion of Early Baptism. — The Manual of Sarum. — 
Bingham's Description of Early Baptism. — Milman 
and Immersion. — Maitland and Immersion. — Brad- 
ford Episcopal Church Baptistery. — Immersion com- 
pulsory in the State Church in England if demanded. 18 



lEELAND. 

St. Patrick Baptizes Hercus and many Thousand others. 
— He Baptizes the Amalgaidhs and Twelve Thousand 
Men in the well Tobur-en-Adare. — Many Converts Bap- 
tized at a Fountain. — Another Baptism of St. Patrick 
near Dublin. — Usher Mentions it. — Immersions Re- 
corded by O'Farrell. — The Irish Immersed three times. 
— An Irish Bishop and Immersion 62 

AMERICA. 

John Wesley Immerses a Child in Georgia. — He seem- 
ingly Refuses to Sprinkle another. — A Baptism by 
Henry Ward Beecher in his Church. — Professor Ly- 
man Coleman on Immersion as '' the first Departure 
from the Teaching and Example of the Apostles".... 71 

FRANCE. 

Clovis and the Franks. — Clovis and the Battle of Ziilpich. 
— Christ on the Side of Clovis. — Avitus on the Baptism 
of Clovis. — Gregory of Tours on the Battle-prayer of 
Clovis. — Clotilda. — Remigius. — The Baptism of Clovis 
and of Three Thousand Soldiers. — Gregory's Mode of 
Baptism. — Alcuin on the Baptism of Clovis. — Alcuin's 
Letter to the Canons of Lyons on Baptism. — Hincmar's 
Account of the Baptism of Clovis, his Army, his Sisters, 
and others. — His Baptistery. — Archbishop Magnus of 
Sens on Immersion. — Leidradus, Bishop of Lyons, on 
Immersion. — Theodalphus, Bishop of Orleans, on Im- 



CONTENTS. 11 

PAGE 

mersion. — Hincmar of Rheims on Immersion. — Im- 
mersion of Hastein, a Danish Pirate. — Immersion of 
another Pirate. — St. Fulbert and Immersion. — Ivo, 
Bishop of Chartres, on Immersion. — Hugo of St. Vic- 
tor on Immersion. — Abelard and Immersion. — Peter 
Lombard and Immersion. — Dupin and Immersion.... 79 

SPAIN. 

St. Isidore on Immersion. — The Fourth Council of To- 
ledo on Immersion 105 

SWEDEN AND DENMARK. 
St. Anschar. — His Character, his Baptisms. — Poppo^s 
Baptizing Brook 109 

GERMANY. 

Boniface, the Missionary. — Othlon. — Pope Gregory II. — 
Pope Zacharias. — Boniface Baptizes many Thousands. 
— Samson the Irishman. — Pope Zacharias and Immer- 
sion. — The Oath of Boniface. — Willibrord Baptizes 
Three Men in a Fountain. — Alcuin^s Standing. — Spain 
and One Immersion. — The Fathers favored Trine Im- 
mersion. — Alcuin doubts the Genuineness of the Letter 
of Gregory the Great to Leander. — Kohlrausch Sprin- 
kles the Saxons in a River. — Alcuin's '^Divine Offices.'^ 
— Two Bishops describe Baptism to Charlemagne.— 
Rabanus Maurus and Trine Immersion. — Haymo and 
Immersion. — Wilafrid Strabo and Immersion. — Sup- 
posed Cases of Pouring. — Regino and Immersion. — 
St. Bruno and Immersion. — Otto Immerses Seven 
Thousand in Pomerania. — Rupert and Immersion. — 
Luther and Immersion 112 

SWITZERLAND. 
Calvin and Immersion 132 



12 CONTENTS. 

ITALY. 

PACK 

('linic Baptism for Death. — First Baptism for Death was 
Pouring. — It was Defective for some Offices if the Per- 
son Recovered. — Cave, Eusebius, Pope Cornelius, No- 
vatian, the Council of Neo-Csesarea, Chrysostom. — 
Called "Clinics" in mockery, instead of Christians. 
— Cyprian defends Clinics. — Its Decline after Infant 
Baptism sprang up. — Immersion of a Paralyzed Jew 
in A. D. 408 in Constantinople. — Martyrdom the Sec- 
ond Baptism for Death. — Cyprian. — Immersion only 
for those likely to Live. — Justin Martyr on Immer- 
sion. — Ambrose on Immersion. — Pope Leo the Great 
and Immersion. — St. Maximus of Turin and Immer- 
sion. — Arator on Immersion. — Gregory the Great. — 
Arian Trine Immersion in Spain. — Gregory's Letter 
to Leander approving of One Immersion in Spain.— 
Maxentius of Aquila on Immersion. — The Catechism 
of the Council of Trent and Immersion. — Dr. Malcom 
describes a Catholic Immersion which he Witnessed in 
Milan. — Dean Stanley on Immersions in Milan. — The 
Baptistery of St. John de Lateran and its Immersions. 
— The Waxen Drawers anciently worn by Popes when 
Immersing 134 

RUSSIA. 

Vladimir the Great. — His Baptism. — The City of Kiefl' 
Immersed in the Dnieper. — Kelley, Dean Stanley, 
Mouravieff. — The Archdeacon's Story who Accom- 
panied Macarius.— The Synod of Vladimir and Trine 
Immersion. — Kohl's account of a Russian Baptism 
which he Saw. — The Russian Dissenters Immerse.- 
Immersion of a Convert through a Hole in the Ice in 
1869 in Russia 155 



CONTENTS. 13 

TUEKEY AND GEEECE.— The Greek Chubch. 

PAGB 

The Constitution and Canons of the Holy Apostles. — Their 
Antiquity and Authority. — They Command Immersion. 
— Dionysius Exiguus, Strabo. — Gregory of Nyssa and 
Immersion. — Chrysostom, his Views of Baptism. — 
Philostorgius and Single and Trine Immersion. — Bay- 
ard Taylor describes a Baptism in Athens. — Dr. Ar- 
nold's Translation of the Greek Baptismal Service. — 
Dr. Arnold on Greek Immersion. — Dean Stanley on 
Greek Immersion 163 

SEEVIA. 
Baptism of Prince Milan's Son 185 

TUEKEY, PEESIA, AND THE EAST. 

A Miracle by Immersion. — Baptismal Service of the 
Nestorians now in Use. — The Armenians and Im- 
mersion 186 

PALESTINE. 

Jewish Proselyte Baptism. — Lightfoot. — A Modern Eabbi. 
— The New Testament and Immersion. — Lightfoot. — 
Jerome and Immersion 190 

NOETH AFEICA. 

TertuUian. — His Baptism is Immersion. — Tingo. — The 
Bishops of North Africa and Immersion. — Character 
of Augustine. — His Baptism. — Baptism of Epidophorus 
in Carthage. — Primasius of Adrumeta and Immersion. 196 

EGYPT. 

Boys Baptized by Athansius. — Immersion among the 
Copts 206 

2 



14 CONTEJN^TS. 

ABYSSINIA. 

PAGE 

Account of Immersions by Bruce 209 

CONCLUSION. 

What has been Proved. — Thousands can be Immersed in 
One Day. — Probably a Majority of all Living and Dead 
Christians were Immersed. — Increase of the Baptist 
Denomination. — Immersionists will never yield. — Jus- 
tification by Faith burst from under a Mountain of 
venerable Papal Heresies. — Immersion will arise from 
the Grave of Six Centuries 212 



Index., 217 



THE 



Baptism of tlie Ages and the Nations. 



TRIl^E IMMEESIOK 

Trine immersion was the general practice of 
Christians from the end of the second till the 
close of the twelfth century. The proof of this state- 
ment is overwhelming. But the proof that triple 
immersion was the usual mode of baptism prevailing 
for a thousand years among Christians begins with 
TertuUian at the end of the second century, not with 
Christ. Beyond TertuUian no record in the literature 
of meny in the book of God, or in any symbol known to 
mortals utters a single word about three immersions 
in baptism. There is not the faintest shadow of evi- 
dence, before the close of the second century, that 
ever has been brought forward, or that can be secur- 
ed, to prove the existence of trine immersion. 

The impossibility of finding evidence for this prac- 

15 



16 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

tice before TertuUian's day is a deadly defect. If it 
only occupied a place in the Scriptures and in the 
observances of the inspired apostles, and perished 
immediately after the death of the beloved John, 
trine immersion could defy all opposition. But it Is 
not in the '' Book of books," where all Christ's insti 
tutions are described and recorded ; the apostles, and 
the men who learned the truth directly from them, 
never even hint at it; and its advocates can only 
appeal to conjectures to establish its existence before 
the end of the second century. Jerome presents the 
truth about the origin of trine immersion when he 
says : " Many other things which are observed by 
tradition in the churches have secured the authority 
of written law for themselves, as, for example, to im- 
merse the head three times in the JontJ^ ^ No man 
tliat ever lived cherished an established religious 
})ractice like trine immersion more affectionately, 
and clung to it more tenaciously, than Jerome. 
No writer of the fourth century was better informed 
about the customs, present and past, of the Christian 
Church, than Jerome. And he was right ; trine im- 
mersion was only a tradition, and of course ought to 

^Multa alia qiise per traditionem in ecclesiis observan- 
tur, authoritatem sibi scriptae legis usurpaverunt, velut in 
lavacro ter caput mergitare. — Adver, Lucifereanos, vol. iii. 
p. 63. Basil, Froben, 1516. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 17 

be rejected by all friends of Bihle Christianity. Sup- 
pose that a vessel is near the shore in a fierce storm ; 
the anchorage is excellent, and the ship has an an- 
chor capable of saving her in any hurricane where 
it can secure a proper hold. The vessel carries a 
massive chain, whose huge links no power of the 
tempest can snap, and by this the anchor is bound 
to the ship. But half a dozen links next the anchor 
are gone, and some tarred rope, just strong enough to 
sustain the weight of the anchor whilst it is lowered 
into the sea, fastens the anchor to the great chain ; 
and as soon as the fierce storm rages the rope breaks, 
the anchor is lost, and the ship is dashed to pieces 
on the rocks. The cable of history proving the long 
continuance of trine immersion stops with TertuUian ; 
there is only the tarred rope of conjecture to reach 
from his day to Christ ; and with Baptists that rope 
has given way long ago. As our fathers refused to 
receive infant baptism with nothing to support it but 
conjectures, so they rejected trine immersion resting 
on that poor basis ; and their successors in the faith 

have followed their example. 
2* B 



18 THE BAPTISM OF THE 



ENGLAND, 

AND THE PEOPLE WHO USE THE LANGUAGE 
OF BEITAIN. 

St. Augustine Immersed Ten Thousand in the 
River Swale in a. d. 597. 

When the English first invaded Britain, their 
future home, they found its inhabitants a Christian 
people. The ancient Britons had been led to the Sa- 
viour by missionaries from the East, now unknown, 
in the first or second century ; and long before the 
conquest of their country by " the Angles, Jutes, and 
Saxons" in the fifth century, the nation worshipped 
Jesus. The victorious English were fierce, persecut- 
ing Pagans. They burned the churches, tortured and 
murdered the clergy, and slew the people without 
mercy ; and those who escaped their ferocious wrath 
had to fly for refuge to Cornwall and Wales. The 
new settlers reared temples in honor of their ancient 
gods all over Britain. In the end of the sixth century 
England was divided into several petty kingdoms by 
its heathen masters, the most powerful one of which, 
at that time, was Kent. The wife of Ethel bert, its 
king, was a French lady and an earnest Christian. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 19 

There is reason for believing that it was largely in 
response to her appeals that, in A. d. 596, Pope Greg- 
ory the Great sent forty missionaries into Kent with 
Augustine at their head. The preachers were so 
wonderfully successful that in a short time the whole 
people of Kent ^vere professors of Christianity. 

Ten Thousand Baptized on One Day. 

Pope Gregory in a letter to Eulogius, Patriarch of 
Alexandria, informs him of this remarkable triumph. 
He wTites : " More than ten thousand English, they 
tell us, were baptized by the same brother, our fellow- 
bishop [Augustine], which I communicate to you that 
you may know something to announce to the people 
of Alexandria, and that you may do something in 
prayer for the dwellers at the ends of the earth.'' ^ 

The numbers baptized on this celebrated Christmas 
Day present no obstacle to our belief in the statement 
of Gregory. If the forty missionaries were engaged 
in baptizing, the ten thousand would only have fur- 
nished two hundred and fifty for each. But it is 
extremely probable that the converts baptized each 
other, while Augustine stood in some prominent 
place blessing the people and the waters. 

^ Plus quam decern millia Angli . . . sunt baptizati. 
Gregor. Mag., torn. iii. lib. viii. Ep. 30., p. 952. Migne 
Parisiis, 1849. 



20 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

Paulinus baptized several thousand on one baptis- 
mal occasion ; Remigius enjoyed a similar blessing ; 
and the apostles on the day of Pentecost were favored 
with an ingathering of three thousand. 

Three Witnesses who give Testimony about 
THIS Baptism. 

Dr. Thomas Fuller, a learned Episcopalian, in his 
Church History states ^ that ''* The archbishop [Augus- 
tine] is said to have commanded, by the voice of 
criers, that the people should enter the river confidently ^ 
two by two, and in the name of the Trinity baptize 
one another by turns." This was clearly a grand 
immersion. 

Green's History of the English People is a recent 
Avork of great research and fidelity. Its Episcopa- 
lian author is " Examiner in the School of Modern 
History " in Oxford. In his history, Mr. Green writes : 
"As yet the results [of the labors of the Roman mis- 
sionaries] were still distant. A year passed before 
even Ethelbert yielded, but from the moment of his 
conversion the new faith advanced rapidly. The Kent- 
ish men crowded to baptism in the river Swale, The 
under-kings of Essex and East Anglia received the 

^ Fuller's Church History of Britain^ vol. i, pp. 97, 98. Lon- 
don, 1837. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 21 

creed of their over-lord." ^ The Swale spoken of by 
Green was in Kent. The Yorkshire Swale could not 
have been used for baptism until thirty years after 
the immersion of the ten thousand, as the people of 
that region were not converted till A. d. 627. With 
this fact Mr. Green is perfectly familiar. This river- 
baptism was an immersion. 

Tradition bears strong testimony about this bap- 
tism. In an English almanac of recent date, on the 
lower half of one page, there is a record of the visit 
of Garibaldi to England, and of the birthdays of 
Prince Leopold, the Princess Beatrice, and George 
Canning ; and then a statement that on the " 20th 
of April, A.D, 597, Eihelbert, King of Kent, and ten 
thousand Saxons were baptized in the river Swale^ 
This is the uniform testimony of tradition, except 
about the day itself. 

An intelligent gentleman of another denomination, 
now residing in Canterbury, in a private letter before 
me, after describing the river Swale, remarks : " This 
is the Swale in Kent There is a river of the same 
name in Yorkshire, but it was in the Swale in Kent, 
according to tradition^ in which the baptism took place" 
[of the ten thousand]. 

^ Greenes Histm^y of the English People, p. 55. New York, 

1877. 



22 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

The Kiver Swale, in which the Ten Thou- 
sand WERE Baptized. 
Ireland's History of Kent gives the following ac- 
count of the Swale : " The stream which flows be- 
tween the Isle of Sheppy and the mainland is called 
the Swale (Plate I.), and its two extremities the 
East and the West Swale. It extends for twelve 
miles, and is navigable for ships of two hundred tons 
burthen.'^ " The East Swale is nine miles from Can- 
terbury." According to Ireland, the Swale was a 
river deep enough to be dangerous for ten thousand 
persons to throng its waters. 

Gocelin's Account of the Baptism of the 
Ten Thousand. 

This monk is called Joscelyn by William of 
Malmesbury, Gotzelin by Dupin, and Gocelin by 
the Patrologice Latince. He w^as a Frenchman by 
birth, and he came to England in the eleventh cen- 
tury. He was familiar with the Chronicles of 
Kent — written long before his day — ^^ two of which 
were collated by him." ^ William of Malmesbury 
tells us^ that he was regarded as a man *' of un- 

^ Bede's Ecclesiastical History, p. 37, preface. Bohn, Lon- 
don, 1870. 

^ English Chronicle, lib. iv. cap. i. p. 355. London, 1847. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 23 

common learning " and of great worth. In his lAfe 
of St Augustine he speaks of him — 

''As rejoicing in success, as men delight in the 
harvest, and as conquerors exult in the spoils they 
have captured. He secured," says he, " on all sides 
large numbers for Christ, so that on that birthday 
of the Lord, celebrated by the melodious anthems 
of all heaven, more than ten thousand of the Eng- 
lish were born again in the laver of holy baptism^ 
tvith an infinite number of women and children, in a 
river which the English call Sirarios, the Swale, as if 
at one birth of the Church, and from one womb. 

"These persons, at the command of the divine 
teacher, as if he were an angel from heaven calling 
upon them, all entered the dangerous depth of the 
river, two and two together, as if it had been a solid 
plain ; and in the true faith, confessing the exalted 
Trinity, they were baptized one by the other in 
turns, the apostolic leader blessing the water. . . . 
So great a progeny for heaven born out of a deep 
ivhirlpool r ^ 

^ " In fluvio qui Sirarios Anglice dicitur, . . . omnes pariler 
bini et bini, minacem fluminis profunditatem, ac si solidum 
campum ingrediuntur . . . alter ab altero. . . . Tanta pro- 
genies in coelum de profundo gurgite nasceretur." Vita SancL 
August., Patrol ogicB Latinos, vol. 80, pp. 79, 80. Migne. 
Parisiis. 



24 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

The word " whirlpool " is a striking figure of the 
chasm made in the waters by plunging the candidate 
under their surface, and of the returning waters as 
they rush together over the immersed body. 

Gocelin, like many others, in his Life of Augus- 
tine makes the mistake of giving to the Swale of 
Yorkshire the credit which was due to the Swale of 
Kent; but this is a matter of no moment, and a 
very natural mistake in a foreigner. 

Gocelin had the original Chronicles of Kent, cen- 
turies old in his day ; and when he describes these 
throngs as " baptized in the river Swale,^' as having 
" entered the dangerous depth of the river,^' and as 
being " born for heaven [baptized] out of a deep 
whirlpool^'' the evidence of their immersion is over- 
whelming. 

We might refer to the universal practice of im- 
mersion throughout the whole Christian communi- 
ties on earth in the sixth century as evidence that 
Augustine would be likely to follow the custom of 
all other churches in his mode of baptism. We 
might point to the fact that Pope Gregory sent him 
to England ; that the pontiff exercised over him 
the authority of a spiritual director; and that he 
received from him unquestioning obedience. Bede^ 
has a list of queries sent by Augustine to Gregory^ 
1 Bm]?e, Huf. Fccles., i. 27, p. 46. Oxonii, 1840. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 25 

with the answers returned by the pope, which prove 
that after Augustine's consecration to the see of 
Canterbury he administered the entire affairs of 
his new office, even in insignificant matters, accord- 
ing to the wishes of his master at Rome. And as 
Gregory wrote, at this very time, about the baptis- 
mal usages of Rome and Italy, " We immerse three 
times," ^ we might establish a moral certainty that 
Augustine immersed three times. We might ex- 
hibit the convincing evidence that the English 
Church immersed her members /or nine hundred 
years after Augustine^s death, and we might natu- 
rally infer that she only followed the instructions 
and example of her founder Augustine ; but it is 
needless. The testimony already given renders it 
certain that the first great baptism of " more than 
ten thousand of the English " in Kent was by im- 
mersion. 

This was the first baptism in that race which owns 
the British Islands, and India, and territories and 
fleets all over the lands and the oceans of the globf 
— a race that has reared this glorious republic, co- 
lossal in resources, in area, and in mental, moral, 
and material powers — a race that exerts the great- 
est influence over the nations of the earth of any 

* Tertio mergimus. Patrologice Latince, vol. 77, p. 497. 
Migne. Parisiis. 



26 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

kindred peoples in human history — and a race 
that was snatched from barbarism, poverty, and 
insignificance by the religion of Jesus, and by his 
gospel invested with all its spiritual and temporal 
glories. In view of these considerations Augustine's 
baptism in the Swale is one of the most important 
events in the annals of mankind. 

Patjlinus Baptizes Edwin, King of Northum- 
BRiA, AT York, with Many of his People, 
IN A.D. 627. 

Alcuin relates that " Easter having come, when 
tlie king had decided to be baptized with his peo- 
ple under the lofty walls of York, in which, by his 
orders, a little house [of wood, according to Bede] 
was quickly erected for God, that under its roof he 
might receive the sacred water of baptism. During 
the sunshine of that festive and holy day he was 
dedicated to Christ in the saving fountain^ with his 
family and nobles, and with the common people 
following. . . . York remained illustrious, distin- 
guished with great honor, because in that sacred 
place King Edwin was washed in the water ^' [of 
baptism]. 

Dr. Giles, in a note in his translation of Bede's 

^ Fonte salutifero . . . fuit lavatus in nncla. Alcuini 
Carniina, Patrol. Lett., vol. 101, p. 818. Migne. Parisiis. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 27 

Ecclebiastical Uidory, states that ^' parts of the 
original wooden structure of King Edwin were 
discovered in making repairs in the present cathe- 
dral of York." And he refers to Brown's History 
of St. Peter's Church of York [the cathedral], 
which in Plate III. shows "the probable position 
of the wooden baptistery enclosing a spring still 
remaining^ ^ 

Edwin, his family, his nobles, and the common 
people, probably numbering several thousand, " were 
dedicated to Christ in the saving fountain,'^ '^ were 
washed in the ivater;'' and the Episcopalian trans- 
lator of Bede's Ecclesiastical Hidory makes himself 
responsible for a statement that the spring is in 
the cathedral of York to-day, in which, probably, 
this vast immersion took place. This was the first 
triumph of Christianity in the north of England. 
It occurred A. d. 627. 

Three Thousand were Baptized by Paulinus 
IN Northumberland at Easter, a. d. 627. 

About eleven miles from the Cheviot Hills, w^hich 
separate England from Scotland, and about the same 
distance from Alnwdck Castle, the well-known resi- 
dence of the dukes of Northumberland, and two 
miles from the village of Harbottle, there is a re- 

* Bede's Eccledastical History p. 97. Bohn, London, 1870. 



28 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

inarkable fouutain. It issues forth from the top of 
a slight elevation, or little hill. It has at present 
as its basin a cavity about thirty-four feet long, 
twenty feet wide, and two feet deep. By placing 
a board over a small opening at one end, its 
depth can be considerably increased. A stream 
flows from it, which forms a little creek. A few 
shade trees with knife-marks, and benches similarly 
adorned, bear witness to the presence of visitors. 
Indeed, the spring is a place of public resort for 
the population for many miles around, and for 
numerous strangers, on account of its early baptis- 
mal associations. The author of this little work 
in the August of 1869, during the half hour which 
he spent beside this beautiful fountain, sftw several 
small parties of visitors who had come to examine 
" The Lady's AVell," as it is called, — that is, un- 
doubtedly, " Our Lady's Well," the Virgin Mary's 
Well. 

An ancient statue, as large as life, lay prostrate 
in the fountain for ages — probably from the period 
when the monasteries were destroyed in the time of 
Henry VIII. This statue, when the writer saw it, 
was leaning against a tree at the fountain. It was 
most likely the statue of Paulinus. It was called 
" the bishop." Its drapery, the action of the atmo- 
sphere upon the stone of which it is made, and its 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 29 

general appearance show that it was set up at a 
very remote period, perhaps two or three centuries 
after Paulinus baptized the Northumbrian multi- 
tude in the fountain. 

The traditions of Northumberland point out the 
Lady's Well as one of the baptisteries of Paulinus, 
the apostle of the north of England. The History 
of Northumberland confirms its traditions. A large 
crucifix was standing in the centre of the fountain 
in 1869 (Plate II.), erected under the superintend- 
ence of the Episcopal Vicar of Harbottle — a worthy 
clergyman, a graduate of Oxford, then living. On 
one side of the base of the crucifix it bears the fol- 
lowing inscription : *^ In this place Paulinus, the 
bishop, baptized three thousand Northumbrians, 
Easter, 627." 

The learned Camden, whose authority on such a 
question is universally respected by those competent 
to judge, speaks of " Harbottle on the Coquet River, 
near to w^hich is Holystone, where it is said that 
Paulinus, when the Church of the English was first 
planted, baptized many thousands of men." ^ Cam- 
den was born in 1551, and the tradition about the bap 

^ Harbottle, cui contiguum est Holyston . . . ubi in primi- 

tiva Anglorum eeclesia Paulinum multa hominum millia 

baptizasse fama obtinet. juili. Camdeni, Britannia^ p. 365. 

Amsterdam i, 1639. 
3* 



30 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

tism rested upon a strong foundation, or he would 
not have inserted it in his celebrated Britannia. 

The village of Holystone is almost within call of 
the " Lady's Well." A nunnery stood for ages in 
this village, to which the fountain belonged, and 
which was most probably built there to commem- 
orate the sanctity and to appropriate the efficacy 
of so holy a font ; and its existence is strong cor- 
roborative evidence of the sacred use to which the 
pure waters of the fountain were devoted by Pau- 
linus. Some scanty remaijis of the convent are still 
to be seen in Holystone. 

More Great Baptisms in the North of 
England. 

Bede, the father of English history, was one of 
the purest and best men that ever lived. He was 
a prolific writer on several important subjects ; and 
though he died in A. d. 7o5, a new edition of his 
entire works in five volumes has been issued in Paris 
within twenty years. Treating of the conversion of 
his Northumbrian fathers in England, in A. d. 627, 
he says : 

"Paulinus, coming with the king and queen of 
the Northumbrians to the royal country-seat of 
Adgefrin,^ stayed there with them thirty-six days, 

^ Yeverin in Glendale, near Wooler, in Northumberland. 



A.GES AND THE NATIONS. 31 

fully occupied in catechising and baptizing ; during 
which days, from morning till night, he did nothing 
else but instruct the people resorting from all the 
villages and places, in Christ's saving word ; and 
when instructed, they were washed in the river Glen} 
which was near by, with the water of absolution." '^ 
He adds : " These things happened in the province 
of the Bernicians ; but in that of the Deiri also, 
where he was accustomed often to be with the king, 
he baptized in the river Swale, ^ ivhich flows past the 
village of Cataract." * Bede records 

The Baptism of a Multitude. 

He speaks of an old man who said that " he and 
a great multitude^ were baptized at noonday, in the 
presence of King Edwin, in the river Trent, by the 
bishop Paulinus, near the city which in the English 
tongue is called Tiovulfingacestir." ® These baptisms 
in rivers were surely immersions. The places where 

^ The river Bowent. 

'^ Fluvio Gleni . . . lavacro remissionis abluere. Hist, 
Eccles., lib. ii. 14, p. 104. Oxonii, 1846. 

' Baptizabat in Sualo fluvio . . . praterfluit. Ibid» 

* Carrick, Yorkshire. 

* Baptizatum se fiiisse . . . et multam populi turbam in 
fluvio Treenta. Ibid., ii. 16, p. 107. Oxonii, 1846. 

* Southwell, Nottinghamshire. 



32 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

the ordinance was administered show the mode clear- 
ly enough. Then Paulinas was a missionary from 
Rome, where, according to a letter of Gregory the 
Great to Leander, they practised trine immersion. 

Baptism of the Mercians, a Powerful Saxon 
Kingdom in England. 

Alcuin states that after the death of Penda, the 
fierce heathen king of the Mercians, their sovereign, 
Osway, " caused them to be washed in the consecrated 
river of baptism'' ^ This occurred about A. d. 658. 
Baptism in England at first was administered in 
fountains and rivers, until baptisteries were erected. 

Caedwalla, King of the West Saxons, is 
Immersed at Kome. 

This ferocious tyrant shed blood as if it was 
worth less than water, and, finding death drawing 
near, he resolved to go to Rome in A. d. 689 and 
wash away his sins in baptism ; and if possible he 
wanted to die soon after. Alcuin tells us that he 
passed over the ocean and the Alps, and entered 
Rome, where his presence gave delight to its cour- 
teous citizens, and special joy to the clergy ; " Whilst 

^ Sacrato faciens baptismatis amne lavare. Patrol. Lat.y voL 
101, p. 824. Migne. Parisiis. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 33 

the happy king," he declares, '^ was deemed Avorthy 
to be immersed in the whirlpool of baptism.^^ ^ 

The word " whirlpool," as noticed elsewhere, de- 
scribes the chasm made in the waters by the body 
of the baptized person as he sinks in them, and the 
rushing of the waters to cover the candidate for 
immersion. 

The Venerable Bede and Immersion. 

Bede, whom Catholics and Protestants unite in 
regarding as a faithful servant of Jesus Christ — the 
first great English author w^ho appeared in the new 
country of the "Angles and Jutes and Saxons," a 
man of vast information for his times, and of re- 
ligious knowledge which is a treasure to-day — writes 
these words about baptism : 

" For he truly who is baptized is seen to descend 
into the fountain — he is seen to be dipped in the 
waters — he is seen to ascend from the waters ; but 
that which makes the font regenerate him can by 
no means be seen. The piety of the faithful alone 
perceives that a sinner descends into the font, and a 
cleansed man ascends [from it] ; a son of death de- 
scends [into it], but a son of the resurrection ascends 

* Mergi meruit baptismi gurgite. Patrol. Lat., vol. 101, p. 
1310. Migne. Parisiis. 



34 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

[from it] ; a son of treachery descends [into it], but 
a son of reconciliation ascends [from it] ; a son of 
wrath descends [into it], but a son of compassion 
ascends [from it] ; a son of the devil descends [into 
it], but a son of God ascends [from it]." ^ 

Bede, the father of English history, who died 
A. D. 735, had no conception of any baptism which 
did not require a descent into the font — an immer- 
sion in its waters, and an ascent out of those waters. 

The Council of Celichyth, held in England 
IN A. D. 816, ON Baptism. 
The second canon of this council reads : " Let the 
presbyters know when they administer sacred bap- 
tism, not to pour holy water upon the heads of the in- 
fants, but always to immerse them in the laver, after the 
example given by the Son of God himself to every be- 
liever when he was three times immersed in the waters 
of the Jordan.^' ^ Whilst at this period, either in or 

^ Nam videter quidem, qui baptizatur, in fontem descen- 
dere, videtur aquis intingi, videtur de aquis ascendere . . . 
peccator in fontem descendet, sed purificatus ascendit. . . . 
Bseda Ven., in St. Joannis, Evang. Expos., iii. 5, vol. 92, pp. 
668, 669 ; Patrol Lat, Migne. Parisiis. 

' Ut non effundant aquam sanctam super capita infantium 
sed semper mergantur in lavacro . . . quando esset ter mer- 
sus in undis Jordanis. Can. IL Cone. Celich., Hardu, Cone 
Collec, vol. iv. p. 1224: Parisiis, 1715, 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 35 

out of England, the question of pouring in baptism 
was evidently agitated, the decision of the British 
bishops plainly showed that in their judgment pour- 
ing was the destruction of the truth. This canon is 
recorded by Harduin, another learned Jesuit, in his 
standard work Conciliorum Collectio, 

Fridegod AND Immersion. 
Fridegod was a monk of Canterbury in the tenth 
century, who, at the request of Odo, his archbishop, 
composed lives of St. Wilfred and St. Owen in verse. 
In his Life of St. Wilfred he states that " he showed 
that those to be saved should be immersed in the 
clear waters,'' Elsewhere he asserts that the " com- 
mon people seeking holy baptism are immersed ^ ^ 

King Ethelred's Immersion. 
William of Malmesbury, an author whose veracity 
and care have been deservedly commended, declares 
that " when the little boy [Ethelred] rvas immersed 
in the font of baptism, the bishops standing around, 
the sacrament was marred by a sad accident which 
made St. Dunstan utter an unfavorable prophecy." ^ 

^ Liquidis salvandos tinguere . . . tinguntur plebes sanc- 
tum baptisma petentes. Frideg., De Vita Si. Wilfr., Patrol.. 
Lat,, vol. 133, pp. 993, 1003. 

^ Cum pusiolus in fontem baptism! mergeretur circumstanti- 




Baptism of the Ages. p^^^^, o^, 

FONT IN CHURCH OF ST. MARTIN, CANTERBURY."^ 



AGES AXD THE NATIONS. 37 

the depth, as it is now used ivith this lining, forms a 
sort of basin which is only thirteen inches. The 
font is circular in shape." 

From this letter we learn that the original cavity 
of the font, before the introduction of the leaden 
lining, was tiventy-nine inches deep and twenty-tivo 
and a half inches ivide. In such a font Ethelred 
was baptized by immersion, the only form of bap- 
tism practised in England till after the Reforma- 
tion. And it was intended to accommodate persons 
of some growth as well as infants. 

Anlaf, King of the Norw^egians, is Immersed 
IN England. 

Roger of Wendover wrote a work whicb he called 
The Flowers of History^ relating the history of Eng- 
land from A. D. 449 to A. d. 1235. The following 
is from the translation of that work by Dr. J. A. 
Giles, late fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 
an Episcopalian : 

" Sweyn, king of the Danes, and Anlaf, king of 
the Norwegians, arrived at London with ninety-four 
cogues on the nativity of the blessed Mary, and 
made a fierce assault with a view to take it; but being 
repulsed with great loss by the citizens, they turned 
their rage against the provinces. King Ethelred 
thereupon, with the advice of his nobles, made them 



38 THE BAPTISM OF TPIE 

a payment of sixteen thousand pounds, collected 
from the whole of England, to induce them to cease 
from robbing and slaughtering the innocent people. 
King Ethelred at this time despatched Elfege, 
Bishop of Winchester, and Duke Athelwold to 
King Anlaf, whom they brought in peace to the 
royal vill where King Ethelred then was, and at 
his request dipped him in the sacred font, after which 
he was confirmed by the bishop, the king adopting 
him as his son, and honoring him with royal pres- 
ents ; and the following summer he returned to his 
own country in peace." ^ 

Many of these Scandinavian royal pirates were 
baptized after wholesale robberies and murders in 
the British Islands and in France, but the ordin- 
ance was shockingly profaned by its application to 
such impenitent enemies of the human race. 

Lanfranc and Immersion. 

Lanfranc was an Italian who reached England 
by way of Normandy, where he was abbot of the 
famous monastery of Bee. As an instructor at 
Bee his reputation spread over a large part of Eu- 
rope, and drew throngs of students to the abbey 
schools. He enjoyed the confidence of William the 
Conqueror, who made him Archbishop of Canter- 

1 Floivers of History, at A. D. 994, p. 272. London, 1849. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 39 

bury four years after the victory of Hastings had 
placed the crown of England on his head. His 
reputation was greatly increased by his Exposition 
of the Epistles of Paul. Commenting on Philip- 
pians iii. 20, he says : 

"jFor as Christ lay three days in the sepulchre, so 
in baptism let there he a trine immersio7iJ' ^ This 
was the testimony of a native Italian, a great 
French teacher and the head of the English Church. 

Cardinal Pullus on Immeesion. 

This cultivated Englishman occupied a very prom- 
inent place in theological and general learning. He 
read lectures for five years in Oxford, and after- 
ward he was professor of divinity in Paris. He 
resided for a considerable period in Rome, where 
he was such a favorite with the pope that he was 
created a cardinal in a. d. 1144. 

In his only work which lias come down to us, a 
valuable system of divinity, he writes of baptism: 

" Whilst the candidate for baptism in water is im- 
mersed the death of Christ is suggested ; whilst im- 
mersed, and covered with water ^ the burial of Christ is 
shown forth ; whilst he is raised from the waters, the 

^ Ut enim tribus diebus jacuit Christus in sepulchro, sic in 
baptismate trina sit immersio. Vol. 150, p. 315 ; Patrol. Lat. 
Migne. Parisiis. 



40 * THE BAPTISM OF THE 

resurrection of Christ is proclaimed. The immersion is 
repeated three times, out of reverence for the Trinity 
and on account of the three days' burial of Christ. 
In the burial of the Lord the day follows the night 
three times ; in baptism also trine emersion accom- 
panies trine immersion^ ^ The most beautiful ex- 
position of Rom. vi. 4 ever penned ! 

The Christening of Prince Arthur and of 
THE Princess Margaret. 

Arthur was the oldest son of Henry VII., King of 
England, and the brother of Henry VIII. , first the 
persecutor of the Reformation and then its protector. 
Arthur was born A. D. 1486. He married Catharine 
of Aragon, who after his death became the wife of 
Henry VIII. and the mother of the bloody Queen 
Mary. Leland, whose authority in such a matter 
is unquestionable, says, in a very lengthy account 
of Arthur's baptism : " The body of all the cathe- 
dral church of Winchester was hung with cloth of 
arras, and in the middle, beside the font of the said 

' Dum baptizandus aquae immergitur, mors Christi insinu- 
atur ; dum sub aqua latet mersus, sepultura Christi reprsssen- 
tatur ; dum sublevatur ex aquis, resurrectio Christi declara- 
tur. Mersio repetitur tertio ... in baptismo quoque trinam 
trill a mersionem emersio comitatur. Card. Kob. Pull., lib. 
Oct. ; Patrol Lat, vol. 186, p. 843. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 41 

church, was ordained and prepared a solemn font' 
in manner and form as ensue th. First, there was 
ordained in manner of a stage of seven steps, 
square or round like, an high cross covered with 
red worsted, and up in the midst a post made of 
iron to bear the font of silver gilt, which within 
side was w^ell dressed [lined] with fine linen cloth 
[to protect the babe firom touching the cold stone 
or metal], and near the same on the west side was 
a step, like a block, for the bishop to stand on, 
covered also with red saye ; and over the front, of 
a good height, a rich canopy with a great gilt ball, 
lined and fringed without curtains. On the north 
side was ordained a travers hung with cloth of 
arras, and upon the one side thereof, within side, 
another travers of red sarsnet. There was fire 
without fumigations, ready against the prince's com- 
ing. And without, the steps of said font were railed 
with good timber. . . . And Queen Elisabeth was 
in the church abiding the coming of the prince. . . . 
Incontinent [immediately] after the prince was put 
into the font the ofiicers-at-arms put on their coats, 
and all their torches were lighted." ^ Here the bap- 
tism was by dipping in the font. 

^ A new font was commonly made for the baptism of a 

royal child. 

^ Lelandi Collectanea^ vol. iv. pp. 204-206. London, 1774 . 
4* 



42 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

The Baptism of Arthur's Sister. 
Margaret was baptized in 1490. When very 
young, in 1502, she was married to James IV., 
King of Scotland. She was the grandmother of 
Mary, Queen of Scots, and aunt of Queen Elisa- 
beth. Writing of her baptism, Leland says : " On 
the morning of her baptism the aforesaid newborn 
princess was christened in the following manner: 
The rich font of Canterbury and Westminster 
Church was prepared, as of old time the custom 
was for kings' children, with a rich round canopy, 
with a great gilt ball. The aforesaid princess w^as 
brought from the queen's chamber into the White 
Hall, borne by the Marchioness of Berkeley ; and 
to her gave assistance the Earls of Arundel and 
Shrewsbury. My Lady Anne, the queen's sister, 
bore next before her the chrism, with a marvellous 
rich cross lace; and before her the Viscount Wellis 
bore a rich salt of gold garnished with precious 
stones; and before him the Earl of Essex bore a 
taper. . . . When the said princess was brought to 
the porch of Westminster Church, the Lord John 
Alcock, Bishop of Ely, was there ready in pon- 
tificals, who christened the princess. As soon as 
she was put into the font all the torches were light- 
ed. ..." ^ I have given but a small part of this 
^ Lelandi Collectanea^ vol. iv. pp. 253, 254. London, 1774. 



AGES AXD THE XATIOXS. 43 

royal Romish christening as treasured up by Le- 
land, but I have quoted enough to show that the 
little princess was put into the font instead of be- 
ing sprinkled with water. In Leland there are 
substantially the same accounts given of the bap- 
tisms of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth. 

In the reign of Edward VI., Walker, a very high 
authority on baptismal customs, says : '* Dijyping 
was at this time the more usual, but sprinkling was 
sometimes used." ^ These times were probably still 
times of real weakness. 

Immersion in England in the Eeign o 
"Bloody Mary." 

Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1558 published 
a volume of sermons, in one of which he says : 

" Though the old and ancient tradition of the 
Church hath been from the beginning to dip the child 
three times, etc., yet that is not of such necessity ; 
but that if he be but once dipped in the water, it is 
sufficient. Yea, and in time of great peril and neces- 
sity, if the water be but poured on his head, it will 
suffice." ^ 

^ Walker's Doctrine of Baptisms, chap. x. p. 147. London, 
1678. 

^ Holsome and Catholyke Doctryne Concerninge the Seven 
Sacraments, pp. 22, 23. London, 1558. 



44 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

Immersion in England in 1644. 

The Rev. Thomas Blake, living in Tamworth in 
Staffordshire, in 1644, writes of immersion : 

" I have been an eye-witness of many infants dip- 
ped, and I know it to have been the constant prac- 
tice of many ministers in their places for many years 
together J^ ^ 

Mr. Blake practised infant baptism, and had no 
sympathy with the people who rejected it. 

Immersion in the Westminster Assembly of 

Divines. 

This great council of godly men framed the Con- 
fession of Faith still received by all Scotch Pres- 
byterians, by all Scotch-Irish and English Pres- 
byterians, and by the great majority of American 
Presbyterians — a Confession held in high esteem 
by many Baptists and others. 

Neal, the historian of the English Puritans, de- 
clares that " there was not one professed Anabaptist 
in this Assembly.'' ^ It is remarkable, under these 
circumstances, that any member of it should advo- 
cate dipping, if immersion had not been a common 
custom of all Christians a few ages before. Dr. 

^ The Birth Privilege, etc., by Thomas Blake, A. M., p. 33. 
London, 1644. 

2 Neal's History of the Puritans, iii. 116. Dublin, 1755. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 45 

John Liglitfoot, one of the ablest members of the 
Assembly, kept a journal of the proceedings of that 
body, and he says that on August 7th, 1644 — 

" Then fell we upon the work of the day, which 
was about baptizing of the child, w^hether to dip 
or sprinkle him ; and this proposition, * It is lawful 
and sufficient to besprinkle the child,' had been 
canvassed before our adjourning, and was ready 
now to vote. But I spoke against it, as being very 
unfit to vote that it is lawful to sprinkle when 
every one grants it. Whereupon it was fallen upon, 
sprinkling being granted, whether dipping should 
be tolerated with it. And here fell we upon a large 
and long discourse, whether dipping were essejitial, 
or used in the first institution, or in the Jews' cus- 
tom. Mr. Coleman wxnt about in a large discourse 
to prove tauveleh [Hebrew for dipping] to be dip- 
ping over head, which I answered at large. . . . 
After a long dispute it was at last put to the ques- 
tion whether the Directory [for Worship] should 
run, * The minister shall take water and sprinkle or 
pour it with his hand upon the face or forehead of 
the child ;' and it was voted so indifierently that 
we were glad to count names twice ; for so many 
were univilling to have dipping excluded that the 
vote came to an equality within one ; for the one side 
was twenty four J the other twenty five — the twenty-four 



46 . THE BAPTISM OF THE 

for the reserving of dipping, and the twenty-five 
against it. And then grew a great heat upon it; 
and when we had done all, we concluded upon 
7iothing in it; but the business was recommitted." 
The next day, in opposition to the friends of the 
primitive mode of baptism — of whom Mr. Marshall 
on the second day was the principal leader — it was 
decided that the Directory should read, " He is to 
baptize the child with w^ater, which for the manner 
of doing is not only lawful, but also suiRcient and 
most expedient, to be by pouring or sprinkling 
water on the face of the child, without any other 
ceremony." ^ This was a singular discussion in the 
venerable Assembly that framed the great Presby- 
terian Confession of Faith. To-day our Presby- 
terian brethren in general regard immersion with 
an honest, manly hatred, and a hatred that consid- 
erably exceeds the repugnance shown by any other 
religious community. Mr. Coleman was " so per- 
fect a master of the Hebrew language that he was 
commonly called Rabbi Coleman;" and when he 
died " the whole Assembly did him the honor to 
attend his funeral in a body, March 30, 1646." ^ 
Mr. Marshall was a great favorite with the Long 

1 The Whole Works of Lightfoot, vol. xiii. 300, 301. Lon- 
don, 1824. 

* Neal's History of the Puritans^ iii. 294. Dublin, 1755. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 47 

Farlianient, before which he often preached, and it 
was accustomed to ask his opinions on all questions 
relating to religion. He was employed in most, if not 
in all, the treaties between the king and Parliament. 
A bitter enemy spoke of him as " a famous incendiary 
and assistant to the Parliamentarians ; their trumpet 
in their fasts, their confessor in their sickness, their 
counselor in their assemblies, their chaplain in their 
treaties, and their champion in their disputations." ^ 

"Annotations of the [Westminster] Assembly 
OF Divines " on Baptism. 

On Eomans vi. 4 this valuable commentary says : 
" Buried with Him by baptism. In this phrase the 
apostle seemeth to allude to the ancient manner of 
baptism, which tvas to dip the parties baptized, and as 
it tvere bury them under the ivater for a luhile, and then 
to draw them out of it and lift them up, to represent the 
burial of our old man and our resurrection to newness 
of life^ ^ The authors of this commentary undoubt- 
edly believed that Paul's baptism was immersion. 

It is denied that the Westminster Assembly ever 
authorized or approved of this commentary. It is 
admitted, however, by very respectable authority 
that the Parliament which created the Assembly 

^ NeaPs History of the Puritans, iv. p. 130. 
- Kom. vi. 4. London edition, 1651. 



48 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

by one of its committees named the commentatora 
and furnished them with books, and that seven of 
the committee of eleven persons who prepared the 
work were members of the Westminster Assembly 
of Divines.^ 

The great Dr. Chalmers of the Free Church of 
Scotland agreed with the exposition of Romans vi. 
3-7 given in The Annotations of the Assembly of Di- 
vines. Commenting on that passage, he says : 

" The original meaning of the word ' baptism ' is 
^ immersion f and though we regard it as a matter 
of indiflerence whether the ordinance be performed 
in this way or by sprinkling, yet we doubt not that 
the prevalent style of the administration in the apostles' 
days was by an actual submersion of the whole body 
under water. We advert to this for the purpose of 
throwing light on the analogy that is instituted in 
these verses." ^ 

Dr. Chalmers in this quotation places himself 
with the great Church Fathers, and ecclesiastical 
historians of all ages, as to the original mode of 
baptism, and with the Baptists of every land. 

Dr. William Cave on Immersion. 
Cave was born A. d. 1634 in England. He was 

1 NeaFs History of the Puritans, pp. 386, 387. Dublin, 1755. 
' Chalmers's works, Commentary on Romans, at vi. 4. 



UIES AND THE NATIONS. 49 

educated at the University of Cambridge, and he 
lived and died an Episcopalian. Cave's Primitive 
Christianity is a work of great learning, rare merit, 
and commendable candor. It has come down to our 
times in recent editions. The copy before me was 
published at Oxford, in 1840, and no doubt it will 
journey down the ages in other editions for gen- 
erations to come. Treating of baptism, he writes : 
" Their haptisteria, or fonts as we call them, 
were usually very large and capacious, not only that 
they might comport with the general customs of 
those times [the times of the early Christians] of 
persons baptized being immersed or put under water, 
but because the stated times of baptism, returning so 
seldom, great multitudes were usually baptized at 
the same time. In the middle of the font there 
was a partition, the one part for men, the other for 
women, that to avoid offence and scandal they might 
be baptized asunder." ..." The party to be baptized 
was wholly immerged, or put under water, which was 
almost the constant and universal custom of those 
times, whereby they did more notably and signifi- 
cantly express the three great ends and effects of 
baptism ; for as in immersion there are, in a manner, 
three several acts — the putting the 'person into water, 
his abiding there for a little time, and his rising up 
again — so by these were represented Christ's death, 

5 D 



50 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

burial, and resurrection ; and in conformity there* 
unto our dying unto sin, the destruction of its power, 
and our resurrection to a new course of life. By 
the persons being put into water was lively repre- 
sented the putting off the body of the sins of the 
flesh, and being washed from the filth and pollution 
of them; ly his abode under it — which was a hind 
of burial in the water — his entering into a state of 
death or mortification, like as Christ remained for 
some time under the state or power of death ; there- 
fore, * as many as are baptized into Christ ' are said 

* to be baptized into his death, and to be buried 
with him by baptism into death,' that, the old man 
being crucified with him, the body of sin might be 
destroyed, that henceforth he might not serve sin, 
for he that is dead is freed from sin, as the apostle 
clearly explains the meaning of the rite ; and then 
by his emersion, or rising up out of the water, was 
signified his entering upon a new course of life, 
differing from that which he lived before ; * that 
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the 
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in 
newness of life.' " ^ 

" This immersion was performed thrice, the person 
baptized being three several times put under water J^ 
The authority of Dr. William Cave for an ancient 

* Cave's Primitive Christianity, pp. 152, 155-157. Oxford, 1840. 



AGES AND THE KATION^S. 61 

Christian custom will seldom be questioned by per- 
sons competent to judge. 

The Key. William Wall, A. M., Vicar of 
Shoreham, Kent, England, on Immersion. 

Mr. Wall was an eminent scholar. His History 
of Infant Baptism is a work of very great merit; 
and though we dissent from its main conclusion, 
yet its hearty endorsement of immersion makes it 
a welcome witness for that truth. 

On the 9th of February, 1705, he received the 
thanks of the Convocation of the English Church for 
his learned book. This was a very unusual compli- 
ment, and at the time there were men of great 
learning in that ancient ecclesiastical parliament. 
In his erudite work. Wall states that '^ their gen- 
eral and ordinary way was to baptize by immersion, 
or dipping the person, whether it ivere an infant or 
grown man or woman, into the water. This is so 
plain and clear by an infinite number of passages, 
that as one cannot but pity the weak endeavors of 
such Pedobaptists as would maintain the negative 
of it, so also we ought to disown and show a dis- 
like of the profane scoffs which some people give 
to the English Antipedobaptists [Baptists] merely 
for the use of dipping. It is one thing to maintain 
that that circumstance is not absolutely necessary 



52 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

to the essence of baptism, and another to go about 
and represent it as ridiculous and foolish, or as 
shameful and indecent, when it was in all probabil- 
ity the way by which our blessed Saviour, and for cer- 
tain was the most usual and ordinary way by which 
the ancient Christians, did receive their baptism.'' ^ 

" The Greek Church, in all the branches of it, 
does still use immersion, and they hardly count a 
child, except in case of sickness, well baptized with- 
out it. And so do all other Christians in the world 
except the Latins, That which I hinted at before is 
a rule that does not fail in any particular that I 
know of: All those nations of Christians that do now 
or formerly did submit to the authority of the Bishop 
of Rome do ordinarily baptize their iifants by pour- 
ing or sprinkling. And though the English did not 
receive this custom till after the decay of Popery, yet 
they have since received it from such neighbor na- 
tions as had begun it in the times of the pope's 
power. But all the other Christians who never owned 
the pope's usurped poiver do and ever did dip their 
infants in the ordinary use, 

" And if we take the division of the world from 

the three main parts of it, all the Christians in Asia, 

all in Africa, and about one-third part of Europe, 

^ Wall's History of Infant Baptism, p. 706. Nashville; 

1860. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 53 

are of the last sort [immersionists] ; in which third 
part of Europe are comprehended the Christians of 
Grsecia, Thracia, Servia, Bulgaria, Rascia, Wallachia. 
Moldavia, Russia, Nigra, etc., and even the Musco- 
vites, who, if coldness of the country will excuse, 
might plead for a dispensation with the most reason 
of any."^ Wall gives excellent testimony for the 
Baptists, though an Episcopalian. 

The Manual for the Use of Sarum, and Im- 
mersion. 

This was a document of great authority ni Eng- 
land, and it was occasionally quoted on the Euro- 
pean continent. Speaking of it, Wall says : " The 
offices or liturgies for public baptism in the Church 
of England, so far as I can learn, did all along 
enjoin dipping, ivitlwid any mention of pouring or 
sprinkling. The Mannale ad usum Sarum, printed 
1530, the twenty-first of Henry VIIL, orders thus 
for the public baptisms : Then let the priest take 
the child, and having asked the name, baptize him 
by dipping him in the water thrice, etc. And John 
Frith, writing in the year 1533 a treatise of bap- 
tism, calls the outward part of it 'the plunging 
down in the water and lifting up agaiji/ which he 

^ Wall's History of Infant Baptism, pp. 727, 728. Nash* 

ville, 1860. 
5* 



54 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

often mentions without ever speaking of pouring 
or sprinkling."^ 

Joseph Bingham and the Baptism of the 
Primitive Church. 

Bingham was a learned Episcopalian. His An- 
iiqidties of the Christian Church for more than one 
hundred and fifty years has enjoyed the unbounded 
admiration of students of primitive church history 
of all countries and communities. 

It contains a larger amount of exact scholarly in 
formation about the doctrines and practices of the 
early Christians and errorists than any work ever 
written. Of baptism Bingham says : 

^'Persons were usually baptized by immersion, or 
dipping of their whole bodies under water, to repre- 
sent the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ 
together, and therewith to signify their own dying 
unto sin, the destruction of its power, and their 
resurrection to a new life. There are a great 
many passages in the Epistles of St. Paul which 
plainly refer to this custom. Eom vi. 4 : ' We are 
buried with him by baptism into death, that like 
as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory 
of the Father, even so we also should walk in new- 

^ AVall's History of Infant Baptism, pp. 715, 716. Nash- 
ville, 1860. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 55 

ness of life.' So again, Col. iii. 12: 'Buried with 
him in baptism, wherein ye are also risen with 
him, through the faith of the operation of God, 
who raised him from the dead.' And as this was 
the original apostolical practice, so it continued to 
be the universal practice of the Church for many 
ages, upon the same symbolical reasons as it was 
first used by the apostles. St. Chrysostom proves 
the resurrection from this practice; 'for,' says he, 
'our being baptized and immersed [^xaradueffOat'] in 
the water, and our rising again out of it, is a sym- 
bol of our descending into hell, or the grave, and 
of our returning from thence.' Wherefore St. Paul 
calls baptism our burial. For says he, 'were 
buried with Christ by baptism into death.' And 
in another place, ' When we dip our heads in water 
as in a grave, our old man is buried ; and when we 
rise up again, the new man rises therewith.' Cyril 
of Jerusalem makes it an emblem of the Holy 
Ghost's efiusion upon the apostles : ' For as he that 
goes down into the water and is baptized and sur- 
rounded on all sides by the water, so the apostles 
were baptized all over by the Spirit: the water 
surrounds the body externally, but the Spirit in- 
comprehensibly baptizes the interior soul.' It ap- 
pears also from Epiphanius and others that almost 
all heretics who retained any baptism retained im- 



56 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

mersion also. The only heretics who did not ob- 
serve a total immersion in baptism were the Euno- 
mians, a branch of the Arians, of whom it was 
reported by Theodoret that they baptized only the 
upper parts of the body as far as the breast. And 
this they did in a very preposterous way, as Epi- 
phanius relates, ' With their heels upward, and 
their head downward.' So that these were the only 
men among all the heretics of the ancient Church 
that rejected this way of baptizing by a total immer- 
sion in ordinary cases} Indeed, the Church was so 
punctual to this rule that we never read of any ex- 
ception made to it in ordinary cases — no, not in the 
baptism of infants. For it appears in the ' Ordo 
Romanus ' and . Gregory^ s ' Sacramentarium ' that in- 
fants as well as others were baptized by immersion; 
and the rides of the Church, except in cases of dart' 
ger, do still require it. 

" But I must observe further that they not only 
administered baptism by immersion under water, but 
also repeated this three times. Tertullian speaks 
of it as a ceremony generally used in his time: 
' AVe dip not once, but three times, at the naming 
of every person of the Trinity.' The same is as- 
serted by St. Basil, St. Jerome, the author under 
the name of Dionysius; and St. Ambrose is most 

^ Yet this was an immersion as far as it went. — W. C. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 57 

particular in his description of trine immersion. 
Two reasons are commonly assigned for this prac- 
tice: That it might represent Christ's three days' 
burial, and his resurrection on the third day, and 
that it might represent their profession of faith 
in the Holy Trinity, in whose name they wxre 
baptized. 

**In the apostolic age, and some time after — before 
churches and baptisteries were generally erected— they 
baptized in any place where they had convenience. 
After this manner the author of the Recognitions, 
under the name of Clemens Romanus, represents 
Peter preaching to the people, and telling them that 
^ they might wash away their sins in the watei of a 
river or a fountain or the sea when they were 
baptized, by invoking the name of the blcs^Bed 
Trinity upon them.' 

''Baptisteries were anciently very capacious, be- 
cause, as Dr. Cave truly observes, * the stated times 
of baptism returning but seldom, there were usu- 
ally great multitudes to be baptized at the same 
time.' And then the manner of baptizing by 
immersion, or dipping under water, made it neces- 
sary to have a large font likewise ; whence the 
author of Tlie Chronicon Alexandrinum styles 
the baptistery whither Basilicus fled the * great 
il luminary ;' which w^as indeed so capacious that 



58 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

we sometimes read of councils meeting and sitting 
therein." ^ 

MiLMAN AND IMMERSION. 

This learned Episcopalian makes the following 
statements in regard to early baptismal usages : 

''At Easter and at Pentecost, and in some places 
at the Epiphany, the rite of baptism was admin- 
istered publicly to all the converts of the year, 
excepting those few instances in which it had been 
expedient to perform the ceremony without delay, 
or where the timid Christian put it off till the close 
of life. It was a complete lustration of the soul. 
The neophite emerged from the waters of baptism in 
a state of perfect innocence. 

" The candidate approached the baptistery — in the 
larger churches a separate building. There he ut- 
tered the solemn vows which pledged him to his 
religion. The catechumen turned to the west, the 
realm of Satan [of darkness], and thrice renounced 
his power. He then turned to the east [the region 
of the rising sun], to adore the Sun of Kighteous- 
ness and to proclaim his compact with the Lord of 
life. The baptism was usually by immersion.'^ ^ 

^ Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Churchy book viii. 
chap. 7, sec. 2; book xi. chap. 6, sec. 11 ; chap. 11, sees. 4-6. 
2 Milmaii's History of Christianity^ p. 466. New York, 1841 



ages and the nations. 59 

Maitland's " Church in the Catacombs," and 
Immersion. 

Maitland was an Episcopalian, whose sympathies 
were not drawn out toward the Baptists. He 
speaks of a stone "which seemed to have belonged to 
a subterranean baptistery, ^^ from which he quotes and 
translates the following inscription : 

'^ The living stream cleanses the spots of the 
body, as well as of the heart, and at the same time 
washes away all [sin]." ^ Of course the stream that 
washed soul and body was the stream in which 
the baptismal immersion occurred. Elsewhere he 
says : 

" The immersion was required to be threefold, or 
trine, as it was technically termed, and the renun- 
ciation of the devil and his works was thrice re- 
peated." ^ This w^as the baptism of the ancient 
Roman Christians, according to Maitland. 

In 1850 THERE WAS A Large Stone Baptis- 
tery IN the Parish Church of Bradford, 
Yorkshire, England. 
The vestibule of the sacred edifice was entered by 

an iron gate, and in it stood the baptistery, meeting 

*■ The Church in the Catacombs, p. 221. London, 1S46. 
» Ibid, p. 224. 



60 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

the eye of every worshipper as he entered the buihl- 
ing. The writer has seen this baptistery several 
times. It was a large block of stone abovi twelve 
feet long, about six feet wide, and about four feet 
high. On one side of it there was a cavity the 
necessary size for the immersion of an adult, and 
on the other an opening large enough for the im- 
mersion of a child of three years old. This block 
of stone, I was informed, was placed in the church 
by one of the vicars of Bradford about fifty years 
ago, to immerse a young lady of Baptist education 
who wished to unite with the Episcopal Church. 

A friend, at my request, on a visit to Bradford, 
within a few months, went to the church to measure 
the stone, and there he learned that in repairing 
the church some time since the stone with two fonts 
had been broken up and removed. 

Immersion is the only Authoritative and 

Legal Mode of Baptism for Persons of 

Sound Health in England at this Hour. 

The service prescribes that "The priest shall 

take the child into his hands, and shall say to the 

godfathers and godmothers. Name this child. And 

then, naming it after them (if they shall certify him 

that the child may well endure it), he shall dip it in 

the water discreetly and warily; but if they certify 



AGES AXD THE NATIONS. 61 

that the child is iveak, it shall suffice to pour water 
upon it."^ 

Dipping is required by the ecclesiastical law of 
the Church of England, unless where the clergy- 
man is certified that the child is weak. And as the 
Episcopal Church is established by act of Parlia- 
ment as the church of the nation, its ceremonies 
have the force of civil laws ; so that a healthy 
child which has never been baptized in any way, 
whose parents want it immersed, can compel by legal 
penalties the clergyman of their parish to immerse it. 

^ Book of Common Prayer : Public Baptism of Ir^anis* 
Printed at the University Press, Oxford, 1863. 
6 



62 THE BAPTISM OF THE 



IRELAND. 

Early Baptisms in Ireland. 

The life of St. Patriclc, Apostle of Ireland, by Dr. 
Todd, is a work of rare value. The author, at the 
time of publishing his book (1864), was senior fellow 
of Trinity College, Dublin, regius professor of He- 
brew in that university, and, what is of far greater 
importance to us at present, a superior scholar in 
the Irish language and thoroughly acquainted witli 
the scanty remains of ancient Irish literature. Of 
course he was an Episcopalian. He gives the fol- 
lowing in regard to one of Patrick's baptisms : 

" Patrick entered into the king's palace, and he 
said to Hercus [after some conversation], 'Wilt 
thou receive the baptism of the Lord, which I 
have with me ? He answered, ' I will receive it ;* 
and they came to the fountain Loigles, and when he 
had opened his book and had baptized the man 
Hercus, he heard men behind his back mocking him 
one to another about the matter, for they knew not 
what he had done. And he baptized many thou- 
sand men on that day." ^ Now, why St. Patrick and 

1 Si. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, p. 442. Dublin, 1864. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 63 

Hercus should leave an Irish palace, even though 
it were but a hut, for baptismal purposes, and go to 
a fountain, is a puzzle, unless Hercus was immersed. 
Todd mentions another baptism of St. Patrick: 
" Patrick then went to the place of assembly of the 
clan Amalgaidh, not far from the present town of 
Killala. Here, according to The Tripartite lAje, 
he found a great assembly of the people with their 
chieftains. He stood up and addressed the multi- 
tude. He penetrated the hearts of all," says our 
author, "and led them to embrace cordially the 
Christian faith and doctrine. The seven sons of 
Amalgaidh, with the king himself and twelve thou- 
sand men, w^ere baptized. They were baptized in a 
well [fountain] called Tobiir-en-adare,'^ ^ Of course 
they were immersed, as they were baptized in the well. 
Nennius, in his History of the Britons, mentions 
" the baptism in one day of seven kings, the seven 
sons of Amalgaidh." ^ Nennius wrote at some period 
between the eighth and the tenth centuries. 

Another Baptism by St. Patrick. 
Dr. Blackburn, in his Si. Patrick and the Early 
Irish Church — a comparatively recent issue of the 
Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia — 

* St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, p. 449. Dublin, 1864. 

* Nennius's History of the Britons, p. 411, Bohn, London, 
1848. 



64 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

describes the kidnapping of some of St. Patrick's 
converts, just after their baptism, by Caroticus, or 
Carodoc, a Welsh man-stealer, as follows : 

" It appears that one evening there was a multi- 
tude witnessing a baptism. A goodly number of 
converts clad in white robes were at the fountain. 
The minister, w^ho seems not to have been Patrick, 
was baptizing them. Very soon after a band of 
pirates rushed upon them. Some were slain while 
the drops of water were scarcely dry from their 
foreheads [or from their clothing, for they were 
immersed]. Others were carried away in their 
white robes. The captives were taken to the sea- 
shore, put into boats, borne away into a foreign 
land, and sold into slavery."^ Dr. Blackburn, by 
speaking of *' drops of water on their foreheads," 
tries to leave the impression that these people were 
sprinkled. But what brought them to the fountain y 
unless to enter it like Amalgaidh and his sons and 
all Christendom at the timef The "Holy Wells" 
of Ireland were doubtless all ancient fonts of St. 
Patrick. 

Another Baptism by St. Patrick. 

The Abbe McGeoghegan wrote a history of Ire- 

* St. Patrick and the Early Irish Church, p. 188. Phila- 
delphia. 



agp:8 a^d the >:atio]S's. G5 

land in French, which enjoys considerable credit and 
bears some merited censures. He gives an account 
of a baptism by St. Patrick near the future capital 
of Ireland. He says : " The high reputation of sanc- 
tity which St. Patrick had acquired, added to the 
luimber of miracles he wrought everywhere, having 
made him known and respected, even by the Pagans, 
the inhabitants of Dublin went out in crowds to him. 
These appearances were a happy omen of the faith 
they were about to receive from this saint. He bap- 
tized them all, with Alphin, son of Eochaid, w^ho was 
at that time their king. The ceremony ivas performed 
in a fomitain near the city, called since that time the 
fountain of St. Patrick, and ivhich became an object of 
devotion to the faithful for many centimes, till it was 
filled up and enclosed within a private dwelling in 
the beginning of the seventeenth century. The saint 
had a church built near this fountain, which after- 
ward became a cathedral, bearing his name.'' ^ 

St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, built about A. d. 
1190, is still standing. St. Patrick in A. d. 448 im- 
mersed a throng in this fountain. On examination 
of Archbishop Usher's work, to which the Abbe Mc- 
Geoghegan refers as an authority, we find that the 
learned primate of Ireland " saw^ himself the fountain 

^ McGeoghegan's History of Ireland, p. 145. Dublin, 
1849. 

6* B 



66 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

of St. Patrick, wliicli had very lately in his time been 
enclosed and filled up within a private house." ^ The 
archbishop also speaks on the same page of the bap- 
tism of the seven sons of Amalgaidh. And just as 
the neighborhood of the Lady's Well in Northumber- 
land, England, where Paulinus immersed three thou- 
sand persons at the Easter of A. d. 627, was selected 
as the site of a Benedictine nunnery, so a church 
was erected near this holy fountain to commemorate 
the grand event, and to gather the blessings which 
were supposed to come from such a blessed conse- 
cration. 

Immersions Kecorded by Father OTarreli.. 

The Keverend Michael J. OTarrell, in his Popular 
Life of St. Patrick, dedicated to Monsignor Wood- 
lock, rector of the Irish Catholic University in Dub- 
lin, and published in 1863 by D. & J. Sadlier of New 
York, speaking of the Irishman who had just re- 
nounced Paganism for Christianity, says : "At every 
step, indeed, the transition to the new faith was 
smoothed by such coincidences or adoptions. The 
convert saw in the baptismal font when he ivas im- 
mersed the sacred well at which his fathers had wor- 

^ Ilium Patricii fontem vidimus (intra privatas sedes inclu- 
sum nuperime et obstructum), Britannic. Eccles. AntiguiL, p. 
449. London, 1687. 



xVGEs a:nd Tin: nations. 61 

sliipi)ed." ^ St. Patrick's font, according to Father 
OTarrell, was a well, and his baptism immersion. 

Speaking of a celebrated Irish idol called Cean 
Croithi — that is, the head of all the gods — made of 
gold and silver, around Avhich twelve inferior gods 
of brass stood, which St. Patrick destroyed at a 
time when great numbers of persons were present, 
O'Farrell says : "And many, beholding it, believed 
in the true and living God, and being baptized, ac- 
cording to the apostle, ^put on Christ.' And in that 
place St. Patrick by his prayers produced out of the 
earth a fountain of the dearest water, wherein many 
were afterward baptized,^' ^ 

St. Patrick ascended the mountain Croagh Pat- 
rick, in county Mayo, for prayer and religious med- 
itation, and, according to O'Farrell, " after descend- 
ing from the mountain, invigorated for the sacred 
duties of the ministry, St. Patrick came to the dis- 
trict of Corcothemne — not far di'stant, it would seem 
— and to the fountain of Sinn, where he baptized 
many thousands,''^ ^ 

O'Farrell gives the following account of the con- 
version and baptism of the Amalgaidhs and many 
others, already mentioned : " When the saint entered 
Tirawly, the seven sons [of Amalgaidh] assembled 

1 Popular Life of St. Patrick, p. 110. New York, 1863. 
'' Ibid., p. 135. 3 jf^^^^^ p^ 157^ 



68 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

with their followers. Profiting by the presence of 
so vast a multitude, the apostle entered into the 
midst of them, his soul inflamed with the love of 
God, and with a celestial courage preached unto 
them the truths of Christianity; and so powerful 
was the effect of his burning words that the seven 
princes and over twelve thousand men were con- 
verted on that day, and were soon after baptized in a 
well called Tobar-Enadhairc, the well of EnadJiaircy ^ 

At another time, when St. Patrick Avas near 
Lough Neagh, he was opposed by a chieftain named 
Carthen, and compelled to leave the neighborhood ; 
but his younger brother listened to the divine word 
and became a convert. " Of him, perhaps," says 
O'Farrell, " the following is related : While on a 
certain time the saint was baptizing in the holy font 
a chief named Cartan, together with his wife, he fore- 
told to the woman that she should have a daughter 
to whom he would give the veil."^ 

Preaching in Ulster, a robber band, seeing him 
on a journey, first thought of stealing everything 
he might possess, but moved with compassion, they 
changed their minds, and pretended that one of their 
company who feigned to be dead was really gone 
into the world of spirits ; and for amusement they 

1 Popular Life of St. Patrick, p. 163. New York, 1863. 

2 Ibid., p. 182. 



AGES AXD THE NATIONS. 69 

plead with Patrick to restore him to life. The 
Irish apostle understood the trick, and earnestly 
prayed for the man's conversion ; and as Patrick 
went his way, as O'Farrell says, " the wretched man, 
Garbanus, w^as no more. His pretence was turned 
into a reality, and they saw before them the cor])se 
of their luckless companion. Affrighted lest the 
same should happen to them, they followed the 
saint and fell at his feet, and by their contrition 
obtained pardon. They all believed in the Lord, 
and in his name they were baptized. Then did the 
saint revive the dead man, and baptizing him in the 
holy font, associated him unto them in the faith of 
Christ.'' ' 

We do not assert the truth of all these incidents 
in the life of St. Patrick, though some of them are 
undoubted facts ; but his baptism, when described 
to any extent, is in a fountain, in a ivell, or it is 
plainly declared to be imraersion. St. Patrick gives 
an account of his own conversion in his Confession, 
just as a regenerated candidate for baptism in a 
Baptist church would. He required apparently the 
same regeneration in his converts, and then he im- 
mersed them. The story of his life makes him so 
like a Baptist missionary that we believe he was 
one. 

^ Popular Life of St. Patrick, pp. 238, 239. N. Y., 1863. 



70 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

The Irish Immersed Three Times in AVater 
OR IN Milk. 
Michelet needs no commendation as a historian 
of great learning and of unusual exactness. He 
says of the ancient Irish that their " infants were 
thrice plunged in ivater, or in milk if the parents 
were luealthy,^^ ^ 

Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick in Ireland, on 
Immersion. 

Gilbert was a correspondent of Anselm, the godly 
and learned Archbishop of Canterbury. He lived 
in the early part of the twelfth century. In his lit- 
tle work on The Constitution of the Church he writes 
of the priest : 

"It is his duty to administer baptism, to dip be- 
lievers who have been exorcised and who have con- 
fessed the Holy Trinity, with three immersions in the 
sacred font'^ ^ 

^ Miclielet's History of France, vol. ii. p. 102. New York, 
1869. 

2 Sub trina immersione sacro fonte intingere. Si. Anselmus. 
Patrol Lat., vol. 159, p. 1000. Migne. Parisiis. 



AGES AN J) THE NATIONS. 71 



AMEKICA. 

John Wesley and Immersion. 

A COUPLE of curious facts are recorded by Mr. 
Wesley, in his journal, in connection with the bap- 
tism of two children. While he was in Georgia, in 
1736, he makes this record: 

" Saturday, 21st February. — Mary Welsh, aged 
eleven days, was baptized, according to the custom 
of the first church and the rule of the Church of 
England, by immersion. The child was ill then, 
but recovered from that liour.''^ In the followiug 
May he writes : 

" Wednesday, May 5th. — I was asked to baptize 
a child of Mr. Parker, second bailiff of Savannah. 
But Mrs. Parker told me, ' Neither Mr. Parker nor 
I will consent to its being dipped.' I answered, 
*If you certify that your child is weak, it will 
suffice, the Rubric says, to pour water upon it.' 
She replied, *Nay, the child is not weak, but I am 
resolved it shall not be dipped.' This argument I 
could not confute. So I went home, and the child 
1 Wesley's Works, vol. i. p. 130. Philadelphia, 1826. 



72 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

was baptized hy another 'person^ ^ Mr. Wesley im- 
merses Mary Welsh "according to the custom of 
the first church and the rule of the Church of 
England," and he requires an assurance from the 
mother of another child, which he is requested to 
baptize, that it is weak, before he can set aside the 
rule of the English Church which demanded im- 
mersion ; and on the mother's declaration that the 
child is not w^eak, he goes away without baptizing 
it, another performs the office, and Mr. Wesley 
clearly leaves us to understand that in his opinion 
immersion was an imperative mode of baptism in 
every case where there was not satisfactory evi- 
dence of weakness. 

A Baptism in Brooklyn, New York. 

A Baptist lady of superior intelligence gives the 
following very interesting account of an immersion 
by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in his own church 
in Brooklyn : 

" Being in Brooklyn for a few days, I have had 
the opportunity of witnessing a baptism by immer- 
sion, the administrator being none other than the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Twenty-five years ago, 
shortly after he became pastor of Plymouth Church, 
he avowed his willingness to administer the rite of 
1 Wesley's Works, vol. i. p. 134. Philadelphia, 1826. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 73 

baptism by immersion to any one who preferred it. 
For some years, by the courtesy of the pastors, Mr. 
Beeeher used the baptisteries of Baptist churches. 
But at a time when the edifice of Plymouth Church 
was undergoing repairs he expressed a desire that 
a baptistery should be placed in it, that they might 
not be dependent on the kindness of their friends. 
His request was cheerfully acceded to. On his large 
pulpit platform stands a movable desk, table, and 
chair. On setting these aside and turning up the 
carpet, a long door is seen, the opening of w^hich 
uncovers the pool, with steps at each end for de- 
scending and ascending. On the occasion when I 
was present — and I was told that it was the usual 
custom — the ordinance was administered after the 
Friday evening prayer-meeting. At the close of 
the service on that evening Mr. Beeeher mentioned 
in the simplest manner that candidates were to be 
baptized, and he invited the congregation to repair 
to the main audience-room. This large room, hold- 
ing three thousand persons, of course was not filled, 
but there were perhaps five hundred persons there. 
The room was lighted principally at the point where 
the interest centred. There was a solemn stillness 
while the people waited for the coming of the ad- 
ministrator. The candidates were but two, a young 
man and a young woman. Their youthful appearance 



74 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

and peaceful countenances added to the interest of 
the scene. After singing and prayer he led them 
down successively into the water and immersed them 
in the name of the Trinity. 

" His views on the subject are well known. He 
believes that baptism is typical, and that the appli- 
cation of water in any form answers the require- 
ment. But never were candidates more completely 
buried in baptism than those I saw laid in the liquid 
grave by Mr. Beecher ; and none who heard his 
solemn tones and noticed the interest he took in his 
part of the ceremony could doubt that he felt he 
was fulfilling the Saviour's command — ' Teach all 
nations, baptizing them.' His manner was charac- 
terized by simplicity and reverence, and there was 
nothing to distinguish it from the same ordinance 
as administered by any regular Baptist minister. 
Although I have witnessed mauy baptisms in the 
course of my life, this, from the outward circum- 
stances, was of peculiar interest to me, and one 
not soon to be forgotten." 

Coleman on Immersion. 

The Eev. Lyman Coleman, D. D., for many years 
a professor in Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, is 
the author of a work of considerable merit on 
Christian antiquities. Dr. Coleman is a Presby- 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 75 

fceriau minister, "past eighty years of age at the 
present time, highly esteemed in the community in 
which he resides, and revered by his Presbyterian 
brethren. He is a man of deliberation and candor, 
and his opinions have much weight among his 
people.'' ^ 

Writing of immersion, Professor Coleman says : 

" We cannot resist the conviction that this mode 
of baptism was the first departure from the teach- 
ing and example of the apostles on this subject. . . . 
If it ivas a departure from their teachings, it was the 
earliest, for baptism by immersion unquestionably was 
very early the common mode of baptismJ^ 

''Trine immersion. — In the second century it had 
become customary to immerse three times, at the men- 
tion of tlie several names in the Godhead. This is 
only an expansion of the idea of the indispensable 
importance of immersion, and indicates more fully 
the foreign origin of this rite." ^ 

" In the primitive church, immediately subsequent 
to the age of the apostles, immersion, or dipping, 
was undeniably the common mode of baptism. The 
utmost that can be said of sprinkling in that early 
period is, that it was in case of necessity permitted 

^ From a Baptist friend of Dr. Coleman. 
^ Ancient Christianity Exemplified, pp. 366, 368. Philadel- 
phia, 1852. 



76 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

as an exception to a general rule. This fact is so 
well established that it were needless to adduce au- 
thorities in proof of it, 

" It is a great mistake to suppose that baptism by 
immersion was discontinued when infant baptism 
became generally prevalent. The practice of 
immersion continued even until the thirteenth or 
fourteenth century. Indeed, it has never been for- 
mally abandoned, but is still the mode of adminis- 
tering infant baptism in the Greek Church and in 
several of the Eastern churches. 

"After the lapse of several centuries, aspersion, 
or sprinkling, gradually took the place of immer- 
sion without any established rule of the Church 
or formal renunciation of the rite of immersion. 
The form was not esteemed essential to the validity 
of the ordinance. The Eastern Church, however, 
in direct opposition to these views, has uniformly 
retained the form of immersion as indispensable to 
the validity of the ordinance, and repeated the rite 
whenever they have received to their communion 
persons who had been previously baptized in an- 
other manner.'' ^ 

Professor Coleman in these declarations speaks 
as an honest man who had read the writings of the 

^ Ancient Christianity Exemplified^ pp. 395-397. Philadel- 
phia, 1852. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 77 

first twelve hundred years of the Christian era, 
^Yhich were penned by the followers of the Saviour. 
He who speaks otherwise has not surveyed the rich 
and large harvest-field of testimony, or he misrep- 
resents it. It is due to Professor Coleman to state 
that he contends as ably as any man could with 
such miserable witnesses that immersion was not 
Christ's mode of baptism or that of his apostles. 
" Immersion w^as the first departure from the teach- 
ing and example of the apostles." ... "If it was 
a departure." " Immediately subsequent to the age 
of the apostles immersion, or dipping, was undeni- 
ably the common mode of baptism." But he no- 
w^here admits that it was the mode of administer- 
ing baptism approved by the apostles. 

Dr. Coleman declares that " aspersion [sprink- 
ling] did not become general in the West until the 
thirteenth century, though it appears to have been 
introduced some time before that period. Thomas 
Aquinas [he died A. d. 1274] says: 'It is safer to 
baptize by immersion, because this is the general 
practice. Tutius est baptizare per modum immer- 
sionis, quia hoc habet communis usus.' " ^ The cele- 
brated St. Thomas, whom Dr. Coleman quotes, does 
not agree wdtli the professor of Lafayette, that 

^ Coleman's Ancient Christianity Exemplified^ p. 398. Phila- 
delphia, 1852. 

7* 



78 THE DArXIBM OF THE 

aspersion was ^^ general in the thirteenth century." 
He expressly declares, in his own clear words and 
in Dr. Coleman's translation, that immersion is the 
general practice. We have, however, the testimony 
of Professor Coleman that immersion was the gen- 
eral mode of baptism throughout the whole Chris- 
tian Church down to the end of the twelfth cen- 
tury, and that from the time "immediately sub- 
sequent to the age of the apostles, immersion, or 
dipping, was undeniably the common mode cf bap- 
tism " 



AGKH A.ND THE NATIONS. 79 



FRANCE. 

The Conversion and Baptism of Clovis. 

Before the conversion of Clovis he was the 
chieftain of a small tribe of the Franks of Tournai. 
In a time of great danger the different tribes united 
together under a chieftain of their choice and made 
war upon the common foe. But the union ended 
with the close of the war, if it held together so long. 
The kingdom of France had no existence before the 
conversion of Clovis, and the royal rulers of sec- 
tions of the Franks were often treated with as little 
ceremony as the lowliest members of their clans.^ 
Clovis was a brave and ambitious warrior, deter- 
mined to extend his authority and his territory. 
The aim of his life was to subdue all his neighbors 
and become the head of a great empire. 

In A. D. 496, the Alemanni threatened to cross 
the Rhine; the Franks gathered from all quarters 
to resist them. Clovis was elected general of their 
army. They attacked the Alemanni^ at Ziilpich, 

^ Michelef s History of France, vol. i. pp. 84, 85. New 
York, 1869. 

^ Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Churchy iii, 
8. Boston, 1869. 



80 THE EA1»LTSM OF THE 

about twenty-two miles south-west of Cologne, and 
for a time the situation of the Franks was des- 
perate. Clovis vainly appealed to the gods for as- 
sistance. As a last resort he cried to Christ, the 
God of his truly pious wife Clotilda, and soon the 
army of the Alemanni was killed or captured, and 
Clovis gathered increased military glory from his 
victory in this deadly conflict. 

He appears with all honesty to have believed that 
Christ gave him his triumph in the battle of Ziil- 
pich, and soon after he was baptized — a rough, 
bloody, and most probably unconverted man, but 
a sincere believer in the might and rule of Jesus 
over the nations. From that battle it was every- 
where spread abroad that Christ was on the side 
of Clovis. The Christian clergy were active in 
giving currency to these representations. The king 
was grateful to Christ and a munificent benefactor 
of his churches for his divine assistance ; and Clovis, 
aided by the prestige of victory, by confidence in 
his new God, and by the active eff()rts of all the 
Christian communities scattered throughout France, 
marched in triumph over the territories of his 
enemies, sweeping away hostile armies and Pagan 
gods and priests, and rearing a magnificent French 
and Christian empire — Christian only in part ; but 
the part of Christianity planted in the days of 



Aui:^ AS!) Tin: .\ATUh\.s. 81 

Clovij5 finally produced most of the other fair por- 
tions of the system of Jesus. Avitus of Vienne, 
Gregory of Tours, Alcuin, and Hincmar of Rheims 
will furnish us with some facts about the baptism 
of Clovis. 

Avitus of Vienne and the Immersion of 
Clovis. 

Bishop Avitus occupied the see of Vienne in the 
end of the fifth century and in the beginning of the 
sixth. He was useful in reclaiming leading Arians 
from their heresy and in advancing the general wel- 
fare of the Frankish Church. He wrote a letter to 
Clovis congratulating him on his baptism, in w^hich 
he says : 

*'That it might appear in due order that you 
were born again out of the water for salvation on 
that day [Christmas Day] on which the world 
received the Lord of heaven, born for its redemp- 
tion."^ 

In the baptism of Clovis, of which Avitus writes, 
the king was born again out of the water — that is, he 
was immersed in it and lifted up out of it, 

^ Kegenerari ex unda. Ej). Aviti Viennen., Episc, ad Clod. 
Regem. S. Greg., Touronensis opera omnia^ Appendix. Pa- 
trol LaL, vol. 71, p. 1154. 

F 



82 the baptism of the 

Gregory of Tours and the Immersion of 

Clovis. 

Gregory was descended from an illustrious family, 
and became Bishop of Tours in A. d. 574. His uncle, 
Gall us, was Bishop of Clermont. Gregory wrote a 
history of the Franks in ten books, which has been 
repeatedly published, and which w^as reissued ten 
years since in the Patrologiw Latince^ the finest col- 
lection of Christian Latin writers ever given to the 
world. " The History of Gregory/' says Dupin, " is 
very useful, and contains many things of great con- 
sequence."^ In this work he gives the following 
account of the baptism of Clovis : 

" The queen did not cease to charge the king that 
he should know the true God, and that he should 
despise idols ; but he could by no means be moved 
to believe these things until at last war was stirred 
up against the Alemanni, in w^hich he was compelled 
by necessity to confess that which, of his free will, he 
had previously denied. Moreover, it came to pass 
that when both armies were hotly engaged there was 
a great slaughter, and the army of Clovis began to 
rush to sure destruction ; but he, seeing this, pained 
at the heart, moved to tears, and with eyes lifted up 
to the heavens, said : * O Jesus Christ, whom Clotilda 

^ Dupin's Ecclesiastical History ^ i. 561. Dublin, 1723. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 83 

declares to be the Son of the liviDg God, thou who 
art said to give help to the struggling and victory to 
those hoping in thee ; devoted to thee, I entreat the 
glory of thy assistance ; and if thou wilt indulge me 
with victory over these enemies, and I shall have full 
experience of that valor which the people dedicated 
to thy name proclaim that they have put to the proof, 
I shall believe upon thee, and I shall be baptized in 
thy name. For I have called upon my gods, and 
they have been far from helping me ; from which con- 
sideration I believe that the gods w^ho do not come to 
those obeying them are invested with no power. Now 
I call upon thee, and I desire to believe upon thee, 
only let me not be overthrown by my adversaries.' 
And when he said these things, the Alemanni began 
to seek flight ; and w^ien they perceived that their 
king w^as killed, they put themselves under the au- 
thority of Clovis, saying, ' We entreat that no more 
people may be killed ; w^e are thine.' But he, w^hen 
the war was prohibited and the people collected to- 
gether, returning with peace, informed the queen in 
wdiat way he was enabled to secure the victory, by 
the invocation of Christ's name. Then the queen 
secretly ordered St. Eemigius, Bishop of Rheims, to 
be brought, entreating him to recommend the word 
of salvation to the king. 

" The priest, when brought, began t^ecretly to ad 



84 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

vise him to believe on the true God, the Creator of 
heaven and earth, to despise idols, which were of 
no service either to him or to others. But he said, 
' Most holy father, I can hear you joyfully. There 
is, however, one difficulty ; the people who follow me 
will not permit me to forsake their gods. But I will 
go and speak to them about your proposal.' Meet- 
ing with his people, the power of God ran before him 
before he uttered a word. The whole people shouted 
together, ' We cast away mortal gods, O pious king, 
and we are prepared to follow the immortal God 
whom Kemigius proclaims!' These things were com- 
municated to the chief priest, who, full of great joy, 
ordered the [baptismal] laver ^ to be prepared. The 
wide streets to the church were shaded by painted 
canvas and adorned with white curtains, the baptis- 
tery was put in order, balsam was poured out, burn- 
ing wax-lights with a sweet odor shone, and the whole 
temple of the baptistery ^ was sprinkled with a celestial 
perfume, and God bestowed such favor upon those 
standing there that they reckoned that they were 
placed beside the odors of paradise. Then the king 
demanded that he should be baptized first by the 
pontifil The new Constantine proceeded to the 
laver, about to blot out the disease of ancient lep- 
rosy and the filthy stains borne a long time, in a 
^ Lavacruili. ' Templum baptisterii. 



AGES AND THE XATIONS. 85 

Jresh fountain} The saint of God addressed him as 
he walked to baptism with eloquent lips, saying, ' O 
Siearaber, meekly bow thy head; adore what thou 
hast burned, burn what thou hast adored.' For 
the holy Bishop Remigius was a man of eminent 
knowledge, and especially imbued with rhetorical 
tastes ; but he was also so distinguished for sanctity 
that he was regarded in virtues as the equal of holy 
Silvester. For there is now the book of his life which 
tells that he was awakened from the dead. There- 
fore the king, confessing the omnipotent God in the 
Trinity, was baptized in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." 

" From his army there were baptized more than 
three thousand; and his sister Albofledis was bap- 
tized."^ 

The " laver " in wdiich Clovis was baptized is 
literally a bath, and could not be used to represent 
a basin for sprinkling or pouring. But Gregory 
describes his own view of the mode of baptism 
very clearly in the following curious miracle which 
occurred somewhere in Spain, if it is not a fable: 
" The bishop and the citizens found the [baptismal] 

^ Kecenti latice. aS'. Gregor. Episc. Turonem., Hist. Franc, 
lib. secund. cap. 31 ; Patrol. Lat., v. 71, pp. 226, 227. Migne. 
Parisiis. 

2 Ibid., lib. ii. cap. 30, 31 ; Patrol. Lat., vol. 71, pp. 225-227. 



86 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

pool full which they had left empty, and the [water] 
rising in a heap higher than its sides, as when a 
measure of wheat is heaped up above its mouth ; 
and you could see the waters rippling hither and 
thither, and not flowing in an opposite direction. 

*^ All the people out of devotion drink, and carry 
home a vessel full for their health ; and they pro- 
tect their fields and vines by a very wholesome 
sprinkling; and after an uncounted multitude of 
amphoTce were filled, not yet even is the heap [of 
waters] diminished. Howbeit, w^hen the first infant 
was immersed the water began to withdraw." ^ 

The w^ord which Gregory uses for pool is piscina, 
a fishpond J from piscis, a fish. The. same word is 
often used to describe a pool, a cistern, a tank ; and 
in this piscina the infant is immersed. That was 
Gregory's mode of baptism for Clovis and all other 
recipients of that sacrament. 

Alcuin's Account of the Immersion of 
Clovis. 

In his Life of St. Vedastns, Alcuin informs us that 
Clovis received religious instruction from that saint, 
and that he recommended him to St. Kemigius for 

^ Piscina . . . infans primus intinctus fuerit. S. Greg. 
Turoncn. Episc. Mirae.j lib. i. cap. 24 ; De Gloria Marty 
Patrol. Lat., vol. 71, p. 725. Migne. Parisiis. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 87 

further enlightenment. Writing of the baptism of 
the king of the Franks, Alcuin says : 

"The king, with no doubts about the faith, with 
great alacrity, with eagerness on the way, hastened 
to see the most holy pontiff Remigius, that by his 
most sacred ministry, through the power of the 
divine Spirit, he might be washed in the living 
fountain of catholic baptism for the remission of 
sins and for the hope of eternal life. He led the 
eager king to the fountain of life, and w^hen he 
came he ivashed him in the fountain of eternal sal- 
vation [baptism]. So the king was baptized wdtli 
his nobles and people, who rejoiced to receive the 
sacrament of the healing hath, divine grace having 
been previously given them." ^ The man who is 
washed in a fountain or in a font is clearly not 
sprinkled w^ith water, nor does he receive the pour- 
ing of w^ater for baptism in such a situation. 

In a letter to the canons of Lyons, Alcuin rep- 
resents a man as becoming one of the catechumens 
when formerly he had been a Pagan, and then in 
the name of the Trinity " he is baptized by trine 
immersion.^^ ^ And w^hen he represents Clovis as 

^ In fcnte salutis eternse venientem abluebat. Alcuiniis, Vita 
SLVedast, Patrol LaL,yoll01,ip^.6S(j-Q90. Migne. Parisiis. 

^ Trina subniersione baptizatur. Alcuini Ephtoke, ep. 90 ; 
Patrol. Lat., vol. 100, pp. 289, 290. 



88 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

washed in a fountain, he means that " he was bap- 
tized by trine immersion in a fountain " — the only 
baptism which Alcuin was accustomed to tolerate. 

The Immersion of Clovis, as described by 

HiNCMAR OF EhEIMS, WHOSE PREDECESSOR, St. 

Kemigius, baptized the King. 

The baptism of Clovis took place at Kheims, and 
it is probable that it equalled in grandeur any bap- 
tismal service in Christian history, and that it sur- 
passed every other similar scene except two or 
three. 

Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims in the first half 
of the ninth century, living in the place where the 
memorable baptism occurred, and the successor of 
the bishop who officiated at it — a writer with every 
qualification to give a correct account of the most 
prominent and influential event in French history 
— describes the baptism of Clovis as follows : 

** In the mean time the way leading to the bap- 
tistery was put in order. On both sides it was 
hung with painted canvas and curtains; overhead 
there was a protecting shade ; the streets were 
levelled ; the baptistery of the church was prepared 
for the occasion, and sprinkled with balsam and 
other perfumes. 

" Moreover, the Lord bestowed favor on the peo- 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 89 

pie, that they might think that they were refreshed 
with the sweet odors of paradise. 

"And the holy pontiff Remigius, holding the 
hand of the king, went forth from the royal resi- 
dence to the baptistery, followed by the queen and 
the people, the holy Gospels going before them, with 
all hymns and spiritual songs and litanies, and with 
the names of the saints loudly invoked. Moreover, 
whilst they proceeded together the king interrogated 
the bishop, saying, ' Patron, is this the kingdom of 
God which you promised me?' And the bishop 
said, ^ This is not that kingdom, but the beginning 
of the way by which you approach it.' The new 
Constantine advanced to the healing font in which 
the leprosy of chronic disease and the filth of the 
ancient pollution of iniquity might be completely 
removed. The blessed Remigius officiated on the 
solemn occasion, by whom, in apostolic doctrine 
and in a holy life, another Silvester ^ seemed to be 
represented. 

" Clovis having entered the life-giving fountain, 
the holy bishop delivered this eloquent address : 
' Sicamber, meekly bow thy head, and adore what 
thou hast burned, and burn w^hat thou hast adored.' 
Framing salutary laws, with lowly reverence he 

^ In allusion to a fable, believed for centuries in Western 

Europe, that Pope Silvester baptized Constantine the Great. 

8* 



90 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

honored the churches built for religious worship, 
that he might adore God in the houses which with 
fierce profanity he was accustomed to give to the 
flames. ... After confessing the orthodox faith in 
answer to questions put by the holy pontiff*, accord- 
ing to ecclesiastical custom he was baptized by trine 
immersion,^ in the name of the holy and undivided 
Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; and, re- 
ceived by the pontiff* himself from the holy font, 
he was anointed Avith sacred chrism, with the sign 
of the holy cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

" Moreover, from his army three thousand men 
were baptized, without counting women and chil- 
dren. His sisters also, Albofledis and Landeheldis, 
were baptized; and there was great rejoicing that 
day among holy angels in heaven and godly men 
on earth. 

" Finally, a great host of the Franks, not yet con- 
verted to the faith, lived with Regnarius for some 
time beyond the river Somme. King Clovis, hav- 
ing gained famous victories, killed Regnarius, who 
was covered with flagitious crimes, and who had 
been delivered to him bound by the Franks ; and 
he induced all the Frankish people, through the 

^ Secundum ecclesiasticam morem baptizatus est trina mer- 
sione. Vita Sand. Remig., Patrol. Lat.^ vol. 125, pp. 1160- 
1161. Migne. Parisiis. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 91 

blessed Remigius, to be converted to the faith and 
to be baptized." 

The Rev. George W. Anderson, D. D., of this 
city, at my request gives the following account of 
the baptistery in Paris, represented by tradition to 
be the one in which Clovis was baptized : 

" The baptistery in which Clovis is said to have 
submitted to the ordinance has long been in the 
Bibliotheque Nation ale in Paris. My attention was 
called to it some years ago, but I never saw it till 
the summer of 1872. On that occasion I visited 
the library and made a careful examination of the 
bath. It is of polished porphyry, fully seven feet 
long, about two and a half feet deep, and nearly 
the same in width. There can be no doubt of its 
suitableness for the purpose. In the latter part of 
March in the same year I had seen three men bap- 
tized in Rome by the Rev. James Wall, the English 
Baptist missionary in that city. The baptistery w^as 
smaller in every way than the one in Paris, but it 
was quite large enough for the due observance of 
the ordinance. As to the authority on which it is 
said to have been used on the occasion of the bap- 
tism of Clovis, I cannot give any information." 

This vessel was probably used for the baptism of 
Clovis, his sisters, his warriors, and a number of 
women and children ; and that immermon was the 



92 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

mode of baptism by which the king and so many 
of his people were initiated into the Christian 
Church is beyond all doubt, whether this laver was 
used or not. 

Archbishop Magnus of Sens, and Immersion. 

Magnus was honored by being consecrated by the 
pope himself, Leo III., at Rome, a. d. 801. By order 
of Charlemagne he prepared a work on baptism for 
the information of the clergy and the faithful. In 
tliis treatise he says : 

'' Baptism in Greek is translated immersion in Latin, 
. . . and therefore the infant is immersed three times 
in the sacred font, that trine immersion may mystically 
show forth the three days' burial of Christ, and that 
the lifting up from the waters may be a likeness of 
Christ rising from the tomb." ^ 

The account given by Magnus of baptism, w^hich 
is quoted above, has the same ideas and chiefly the 
same words as were given to Charlemagne by one of 
his bishops, and appear in this work. But there are 
verbal variations in the original Latin which indicate 
two authors. 

^ Baptismum Grsece Latine tinctio interpretatur . . . in- 
fans ter mergitur in sacro fonte ut sepulturam triduanam 
Christ! trina demersio mystice designaret, et ab aquis ele- 
vatio Christi resurgentis similitudo est de sepulcro. Patrol. 
Lat, vol. 102, p. 981. Migne. Parisiis. 



ages and the nations. 93 

Leidrabus, Bishop of Lyons, on Baptism, 
A.D. 816. 

This author has left us three epistles and a tract on 
baptism. He was a man of distinction among the 
ecclesiastics of his day. He was sent twice into Spain 
by Charlemagne to reclaim Felix and Elipandus, who 
taught that Christ as a man was the Son of God only 
in name and by adoption. Speaking of baptism, he 
says : 

" But we immerse three times that we may show 
forth the mystery of the three days' burial ; that 
whilst the infant is drawn out of the water three 
times, the resurrection [at the close] of three days 
may be shown forth, ... in the baptism of infants 
there ought to be no censure for immersing once or 
thrice, since in three immersions the Trinity of per- 
sons [in the Godhead] can be exhibited, and in a 
single immersion the oneness of Jehovah." ^ 

Theodulphus, Bishop of Orleans, on Im- 
mersion. 

Theodulplius, an Italian who enjoyed the special 
friendship of Charlemagne and of Louis the Pious, 

^ Nos autem tertio mergimus . . . infantum in baptismate 
vel ter vel seniel mergere ; quando in tribus mersionibus 
personarum trinitas, et in una potest divinitatis singularitas 
designari. Leidrad. Episc. Lugdun., Patrol, Lat., vol. 99, p. 
863. Migne. Parisiis. 



94 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

became Bishop of Orleans A. d. 794, and died A. d. 
821. He wrote several works in prose and poetry. 
There is still in existence a beautiful copy of the 
Holy Scriptures which was prepared at his expense, 
and to which he prefixed a preface and some poems 
in golden letters. In his tract On Baptism he says : 
^' We are buried with Christ when, at the invoca- 
tion of the Holy Trinity, ive descend by trine immer- 
sion into the font of the laver as if into a certain grave. 
When divested [by baptism] of all sins as we go out 
from the font, we arise with Christ ^ ^ 

HiNCMAR AND IMMERSION. 

Two French bishops in the ninth century bore tliis 
name. Hincmar, Bishop of Laon, was arrogant and 
quarrelsome. He had bitter controversies with the 
king, his clergy, and his uncle until he was deposed. 
Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, the uncle of Hinc- 
mar of Laon, was a man of superior intellect and 
culture, and of very great influence in the Church 
and in the State. He gives his views of baptism in 
the following w^ords : 

" If you believe and confess three immersions in the 

^ Sub trina immersione in fonte lavacri, quasi in quoddam 
eepulcrum descendimus . . . de fonte quasi egredimur. Theo- 
dulf. Aurelian. Episc, Patrol. Lat.y vol. 105, p. 223. Migne. 
Parisiis. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 95 

uame of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Sacred 
Spirit, to be one baptism, because there is one God. 
the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, of one essence, 
of one Deity, of one nature, in whose name catholic 
baptism is administered — . . . if you are silent about 
this question, we shall therefore say that the three im- 
mersions are one baptism.''^ ^ Hincmar is defending^ 
the Trinity. 

Baptism of Hastein, a Danish Pirate, in 
France, a. d. 887. 

In the Flowers of History, written by Roger of Wen- 
dover, a monk of St. Alban's, in the thirteenth cen- 
tury, we have an account of the ravages and mur- 
ders perpetrated by Hastein, or Hasting, in England 
and France ; and to crown all his infamies Roger 
records his impious baptism. He says : 

"At length he sent his servants to the Bishop 
and Count of Lunis [a French city he vainly tried 
to capture], informing them that he was seized with 
a mortal illness, and humbly requesting to be made 
a Christian by them. On hearing this, the bishop 
and count rejoiced greatly, and making peace with 
the enemy of peace, allowed his people free admis- 

^ Tres mersiones. . . . Dicimus ideo tres mersiones unum 
esse baptisma. Hincm. Bhem., De Una el Non Trina Dictate., 
Patrol. Lat, vol. 125, pp. 554, 555. Migne. Parisiis. 



96 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

sion to the city. At length the wicked Hastein 
was carried to the church and immersed m the 
sacred font, from which the bishop and mayor raised 
him again to their own destruction; and after re- 
ceiving the holy anointing he w^as carried back 
to his ships by the hands of his servants. After 
this, in the depth of night he was clad in armor 
and laid on a bier, having directed his followers 
to wear their coats of mail under their tunics. His 
comrades then with feigned sorrow bore him from 
on board ship to the church, where the bishop in 
his holy garments was ready to sacrifice the host 
for the deceased ; when, behold, Hastein, that son 
of perdition, suddenly sprang up from the bier, put 
the bishop and count to the sword, and fell with 
wolfish rage on the people." ^ 

The Immersion of a Pirate. 

Richerus, a monk of Rheims, in the tenth cen- 
tury, the author of a history in four books, gives 
the following description of the baptism of one 
of the numerous outlaws who at that time infested 
the coasts and rivers of Europe : 

" On the appointed day, in the basilica of St. 
Marcial the Martyr, the services of the bishops 

1 Roger of Wendover, at A. D. 887, vol. i., pp. 223, 224. 
London, 1849. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 97 

being over, he [a pirate], received from the king 
himself, descended into the holy font, and tvas bap- 
tized by trine immersion in the name of the Father 
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit/' ^ 

St. Fulbert and Immersion. 

St. Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, in the l)eginuing 
of the eleventh century, was a warm friend to 
learning and theology. He gave lectures to the 
public on various important subjects in the schools 
of the church of Chartres. Throngs of students 
from France and Germany went forth from his 
instructions to extend his fame and enlighten the 
benighted. 

Robert, King of France, highly esteemed St. 
Fulbert, and for nearly a quarter of a century he 
was the honored head of the church of Chartres. 
Expounding Romans vi. 3, 4—*' Know ye not that so 
many of us as were baptized into Christ, were baptiz- 
ed into his death ? Therefore we are buried with him 
by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised 
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so 
we also should walk in newness of life," etc. — he 
says : 

"As, therefore, we have been informed that the 

* In sacrum fontem descenderet . . . trina immersione. 
Hist.^ lib. iv. ; Patrol. Lat, vol. 138, p. 24. Migne. Parisiis. 



98 THE BAPTISM OF IHE 

body of our Lord Jesus Christ was buried in an 
earthly grave three days and three nights, so also 
a man immersed three times under an element allied 
to the earth [water'] is covered ; and thus, whilst he 
is immersed in imitation of a vital mystery, he is 
buried; when he is raised [from the water] he is 
awahened. In connection with this topic, reflect a 
little upon what the water accomplishes and upon 
what the Holy Spirit performs : The water brings 
doivn the person dying, as it were, into the tomb ; the 
Holy Spirit brings him, as if rising again, through 
to heaven" ^ At this period, from end to end of 
Christendom, baptism was thus described. 

Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, and Immersion. 

Ivo was a man of extensive learning and of un- 
usual reverence for the old customs of the Church. 
His morals were unblemished, and his influence was 
great in every department of his country and among 
all classes of society. He died A. d. 1115. 

Writing of baptism, he quotes the language of 
Pope Leo the Great as his own: 

^ Et homo ita sub cognato terrse elemento trina vice de- 
mersus operitur, ac sic vitalis imitatione mysterii diim de- 
mergitur sepelitur. . . . Aqua velut morientem deducit in 
tumulum ; Spiritus Sanctus velut resurgentum perducit ad 
coelum. S. Falberti Carnot. Episc. Ep. ; Patrol. Lat., vol. 
141, p. 200. Migne. Parisiis. 



AGES AND TllK NATIONS. 99 

" Trine immersion is an imitation of the three days* 
hurialy and the rising from the waters is a lilceness of 
the resurrection from the sepidchre^ ^ 

Gregory the Great and Leo the Great are quoted 
very frequently before and during the twelfth cen- 
tury as authorities on the baptismal question. 

Hugo of St. Victor and Immersion. 

Hugo was born A. D. 1096, and died A. d. 1140. 
He was a monk of the monastery of St. Victor in 
Paris, and one of the most prominent literary men 
in Europe in the twelfth century. His works are 
numerous, and treat of theology, philosophy, and 
other questions. He was a great admirer of St. 
Augustine; and such was his reputation that ob- 
scure authors placed his name upon their produc- 
tions to secure for them the respect paid to the 
works of such a distinguished writer. Treating of 
baptism, he states that " trine immersion itself is 
spoken of as the sacrament of the Trinity or of the 
three days' burial [of Christ]. Immersion is made 
ba.ptism by the invocation of the Trinity, After you 
promised to believe we immersed your heads three times 
in the sacred font " ^ [candidates for baptism were 

' Sepiilturam triduanam imitatur trina demersio. De Fide, 
Patrol. Laty vol. 161, p. 73. Migne. Parisiis. 

' Ipsa trina immersio sacramentum dicitur vel Trinitatis 



100 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

placed in the water up to the neck by deacons if men, 
or by deaconesses if women, after which the bishop 
came and dipped their heads in the water]. "This 
order of baptism is observed to show forth a double 
mystery ; fo?- ye were rightly immersed three times 
who have received baptism in the name of the 
Trinity, and ye were rightly immersed three times 
who have received baptism in the name of Jesus 
Christ, who arose from the dead on the third day ; 
for this trine immersion is a figure of the Lord's 
burial, through which [immersion] ye have been 
buried with Christ by baptism."^ 

Hugo then proceeds to quote the letter of Gregory 
the Great to Leander, approving of one immersion 
in Spanish baptisms, though he admits that in Rome 
they had three. He also cites Haymo, Bishop of 
Halberstadt, who declares in his Commentary on the 
Epistle to the Romans that "he immersed little chil- 
dren once in baptism." 

In another place Hugo, addressing the adminis- 

vel . . . baptismus immersio facta est. . . . Postquam vos cre- 
dere promisistis tertio capita vestra in sacro fonte demersimus. 
^ Recte enim tertio mersi estis. . . . Recte enim tertio mersi 
estis. . . . Ilia enim trina immersio typum dominse exprimit 
sepulturse. . . . Semel mergebat in baptismo parvulos. Summa 
senfent, Tract v. cap. 3 ; Patrol. Lat., vol. 176, p. 130. Migne. 
Paris! is. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 101 

trator of baptism, says: ''You immersed a man, and 
said, 'I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son^ and of the Holy Spirit;' and you say to me, 
* This man is a Christian. He has been baptized in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Spirit. I have immersed him three times in the 
ivater,^ and I said when I immersed him, I baptize 
you in the name of the Father^ and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Spiritr' 

In the twelfth century immersion was the recog- 
nized mode of baptism in Europe and out of it, or 
such language could not have come from the great 
writer of St. Victor. 

Abelard and Immersion. 

Abelard in the twelfth century astonished France, 
his own country, and all Europe by the splendor 
of his genius and by the rapidity with which he 
reached the loftiest heights of fame. This acute 
reasoner adopts the language of Pope Gregory the 
Great about baptism as his own, and declares that 
" In baptism it is of no consequence whether you 
immerse the infants once or three times ; by three im- 

^ Mersisti hominem. . . . Ego ilium mersi tertio in aquam. 

Ego dixi cum mergerem. . . . Hago. de St. Vict, De Sacram... 

lib. ii. pars vi. ; Patrol. Lat., vol. 176, p. 443. 
9* 



102 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

mersions the Trinity can be exhibited, and by one 
the unity of the divinity." ^ 

But Abelard did not say, '*It is of no consequence 
in baptism whether you pour, sprinhle, or immerse 
once or three times." 

Peter Lombard and Immersion. 

Lombard was a native of Italy, and at first a 
student at Bologna. In pursuit of a theological 
education he came to Paris, where he employed his 
advantages so successfully that he was appointed 
a professor of theology and afterward Bishop of 
Paris. He composed a system of theology based 
upon the writings of the Fathers, and chiefly from 
Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, which 
was received with enthusiasm throughout Europe, 
and which became the "text-book of divinity" for 
some generations. He died A. d. 1164, after wield- 
ing for years an influence seldom equalled. Writ- 
ing of baptism, he says : 

'^Baptism is called dipping — that is, the external 
washing of the body — administered with a prescribed 
form of words." Then he approvingly quotes the 
following from Pope Zachary : " An English synod 
positively decreed that any one immersed without 

^ In baptisinate vel ter vel seinel mergere, quando tribus 
mersionibus. Pa^?'oZ. ia^., vol. 178, p. 1510. Migne. Parisiis. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 103 

the invocation of the Trinity had not the sacra- 
ment of regeneration, which is undoubtedly true, 
because if any one is plunged info the font of bap- 
tism without the invocation of the Trinity, his 
Christianity is not complete. 

"If you inquire about the immersion — in what 
way it ought to be performed — we answer briefly: 
Either once or three times, according to the different 
customs of the Church.^' ^ Lombard then proceeds to 
quote Gregory's letter to Leander, giving his sanc- 
tion to trine or single immersion in Spain. 

As an authority for the baptismal customs of 
Western Christendom no man stood before Peter 
Lombard in the twelfth century. 

DupiN, THE Church Historian, and 
Immersion. 

This learned Roman Catholic, though writing for 
his own community, gave the world, in the end of 
the seventeenth century, the most extensive, exact, 
and in the main impartial history of the writers 
of the Christian Church ever penned; and his 

^ Baptismus dicitur intinctio . . . sine invocatione Trini- 
tatis mersus fuisset . . . mersus in fontem baptismi. . , . 
De immersione vero si quseritur . . . vel semel, vel ter pro 
vario more ecclesise. Sentent. Quatuor., lib. iv. dist. iii., 1, 2, 
9, vol. 192, pp. 843, 845 ; Patrol. Lat. Migne. Parisiis. 



104 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

record of the movements in and around the Church 
of Christ is unusually reliable. 

Speaking of baptism in the third century, he 
says : '^ They baptized, with some ceremonies, those 
that were well instructed in their religion, and who 
had given satisfactory signs of their sincere conversion. 
They generally dipped them thrice in the water T ^ 

Of the fourth century he says: "Baptism was 
administered to infants and adults with many cere- 
monies. They were dipped three times into the 
water, ^' ^ etc. 

Of the thirteenth century he says : " The triple 
immersion was still in use^^ 

^ Dupin's Ecclesiastical History, i. 589. Dublin, 1723. 
2 Ibid., i. 630. 3 xhid.. ii. 395. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 105 



SPAIN. 

St. Isidore and Immersion. 

Isidore was the grandson of Theodoric, King of 
Italy. He was born at Seville in Spain, and after 
the death of his brother Leander he became bishop 
of his native city, A. d. 595. Isidore was a man of 
profound learning for his day, and a prolific writer. 
He made a deep impression upon his countrymen 
and the Western nations, which ages did not remove. 
The Eighth Council of Toledo gives him this com- 
mendation : " The excellent doctor of our age, Isi- 
dore, the greatest ornament of the Catholic Church, 
the last of the Fathers with regard to the times, but 
such as may for his learning be compared to the first, 
the most learned man of past ages." ^ 

Speaking of baptism, Isidore says : " Once it be- 
hooves us to be washed for Christ, as Christ has once 
died for us ; for if there is one God and one faith, 
of necessity also there is one baptism, seeing there 
is one death of Christ, into the image of which we 
are immersed through the mystery of the holy font, 

1 Dupin, ii. 4. Dublin, 1824. 



J 06 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

that dy' \gto this world we might be buried with Christy 
and that ive might be raised up from the same waters 
in the likeness ^ of his resurrection.^^ 

St. Isidore speaks on the mode of baptism as an 
American Baptist pastor of the nineteenth centnry. 

The Fourth Council of Toledo and Im- 

MEKSION. 

This Spanish council was convened by King Sise- 
nand A. d. 633. It was composed of the archbish- 
ops of Seville, Narbonne, Braga, Merida, Toledo, and 
Tarragona, with fifty-three suffragan bishops, and 
with seven presbyters representing bishops. Many 
of the orthodox Christians in Spain were very indig- 
nant at the change in baptism from trine to single 
immersion; and neither Pope Gregory's letter nor 
the authority of their own most venerable bishops 
was able to silence them. To calm this disturb- 
ance and unite the Spanish Catholics the council 
decreed : 

" For, shunning the scandal of schism or the use 
of an heretical practice, we observe a single immersion 
in baptism. Nor do they who immerse three times ap- 

^ In cujus imaginem mergimur per mysterium sacri fontis, 
lit consepeliamur Christo morientes huic mundo, et ab iisdem 
aquis in forma resurrectionis ejus emergimur. DeEcdes. Offic, 
Patrol. LaL, vol. 83, p. 821. Jligne. Parisiis. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 107 

pear to us to approve of the claims of heretics, al- 
though they follow their custom [of trine immersion]. 
And that no one may doubt the propriety of this 
single sacrament, let him see that in it the death and 
resurrection of Christ are shown forth. For the im- 
mersion in the waters is a descent, as it were, into the 
grave ; and again the emersion from the waters is a 
resurrection. Likewise, he may see displayed in it 
the unity of the Deity and the Trinity of persons — 
the unity whilst we immerse onee, and the Trinity 
whilst we baptize in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." ^ The council 
first quote the letter of Pope Gregory to Leander, 
which they emphatically commend. Gregory's let- 
ter from this time became a celebrated document, 
to which for centuries there was continual reference 
to show that either trine or single immersion was 
orthodox. 

This canon of Toledo, with Gregory's letter, is in 
Labbe and Cossart's Sacrorum Conciliorum, The 
authors of this immense work were learned Jesuits, 

^ Simplicem teneamus baptismi mersionem ; ne videantur 
apud nos, qui tertio mergunt. . . . Nam in aquis mersio, 
quasi ad infernum descensio est ; et rursus ab aquis emersio, 
resurrectio est . . . unitatem, dum semel mergimus ; Trini- 
tatem. . . . Cone, Tolet., iv. can. 5, Labbe et Cossart, vol. x. 
pp. 614, 615. Florenti^, 1764. 



JOS THE BAPTISM OF THE 

and nothing supposed to be lacking in Catholic or- 
thodoxy is likely to be found in its pages. 

The fifth canon of the Fourth Council of Toledo 
breathes the spirit of the apostle Paul or of a mod- 
ern Baptist. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 109 



SWEDEN AND DENMARK. 

St. Anschar and Scandinavian Immersions. 

Till the ninth century little had been done by 
Christians for the conversion of the Danes and 
Swedes. Anschar, though not the first laborer 
among these hardy Pagans, obtained such a meas- 
ure of well-deserved success that he is justly called 
''the apostle of the Scandinavians." He was born 
a. D. 801 ; he was educated in the monastery of 
Corbie in France, of which he became a monk, and 
he died A. d. 865, having been a legate of the pope 
and the first archbishop of Hamburg. He was a 
true successor of the heroic band chosen by the 
Teacher of Nazareth to carry his gospel over the 
nations. The leader of an enterprise which was so 
successfully started, and which, under the labors of 
his successors, became everywhere triumphant, was 
honored as a canonized saint among the Swedes and 
Danes, and as a bishop worthy of the love of Chris- 
tendom. 

His biography was written in prose by his com- 
panion Eimbertus, and in a poetic form by Gualdo, 

10 



110 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

a monk of Corbie in the eleventh century. These 
two works were published in Stockholm in 1677, in 
Latin, under the title of The Double Life of St. 
Anschar. Peter Lambecius, an eminent scholar, 
wrote notes for The Double Life. Claudius Arrhe- 
nius, professor of history in the great Swedish Uni- 
versity of Upsala, added some contributions to the 
work. Gualdo, describing the success of Anschar 
in the time of King Horicus [Eric], relates that 
"both sexes hastened to be immersed in the sacred 
waters.'^' ^ And again : " When the king had ac- 
complished what he wished, he called the saint to 
himself, and he gave him liberty to build churches 
throughout the region, to have priests with him, 
and to immerse freely all who wished [baptism] in the 
liquid waters.''^ ^ 

Commenting on The Double Life, and especially 
on the conduct of some of Anschar's converts who 
wanted to defer baptism till near death, that its 
waters might wash away all their sins just as they 
were about to enter heaven, the learned Lambecius 
says: 

*' They who delay baptism for this reason are not 

^ Sexus uterque sacris mergi properabat in undis. St. An- 
scharii Vita Oeminaj p. 195. Holmise, 1677. 

^ Qui vellent, liquidis mersare licenter in undis. Ibid., p. 
202. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. Ill 

SO censurable as those who put it off as long as pos- 
sible through bashfulness and shame; since for- 
merly men and women, laying aside their bashful- 
ness, their whole bodies being entirely nude, were 
baptized in the presence of . all ; and that not by 
sprinkling indeed, but by immersion or sinking 
them:' ' 

Poppo, an honored missionary among the Danes, 
was so highly esteemed, according to Neander, that 
many places were named after him — such as Popp- 
holz, a forest between Flensburg and Schleswig, 
where, as tradition relates, he built himself a hut. 
"J/i a brook which flows by the spot, Hillegenbach, 
he is said to have baptized his disciples.'' ^ No 
climate for ages was too cold for the Saviour's en- 
joined immersion. 

* Non per aspersionem scilicet, sed per immersionem, sen 
KaraSvaLv. St. Anscharii Vita Gemina, p. 255. Holmiae, 
1677. 

' Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, 
vol. iii. p. 289. Boston, 1869. 



112 THE BAPTISM OF THE 



GEEMANY. 

Baptisms by St. Boniface, the Apostle of 
THE Germans. 

St. Boniface, whose proper name was Winfrid, 
was born in Devonshire, in England, in 680. When 
he was thirty years of age he was filled with en- 
thusiasm to preach Christ to the heathen, and soon 
after he assisted the aged Willibrord, Archbishop 
of Utrecht, in spreading the gospel among the 
Pagan Frieslanders for three years. Afterward he 
came to Upper Hesse as a missionary. There, in 
the presence of a great multitude of idolaters, he 
cut down an ancient oak consecrated for ages to 
Jupiter. In its fall the tree, instead of killing 
him, broke into four pieces, and the daring Boni- 
face denounced the absurdity and wickedness of 
worshipping such an idol. Hosts of Pagans forth- 
with gave up their false gods and were baptized as 
Christians. 

Othlon, one of the biographers of Boniface, was 
a German monk of the eleventh century. His Life, 
Letters J and Sermons of St, Boniface is an excellent 
work. 



AGES AND THE XATIONS. 113 

Gregory the Second was chiefly remarkable for 
exacting an oath of obedience to the pope from the 
first German bishop — an act of wrong which is now 
universal in the Papal Church. 

Pope Zacharias, whose letter to Boniface on bap- 
tism is so explicit, was a prelate of signal ability, 
and his opinions on the initiatory sacrament of the 
Christian Church were those accepted by all Roman 
Catholics in his day. 

Othlon, in his life of Boniface, after speaking of 
his great success in Frisia, says : " There also he en- 
tered other parts of Germany that he might preach. 
He went to the Hessians located on the confines of 
the Saxons, whom in like manner he converted in 
large numbers from Paganism, and he washed many 
thousands of men in the sacrament of baptism." ^ 
This was one of the largest baptisms that ever oc- 
curred, and the solemn rite was administered by 
immersion. The word wash is never employed to 
describe sprinkling or pouring in baptism. Gar- 
ments are washed by dipping. 

^ Tunc etiam alias Germaniae partes prsedicandi causa adiit, 
Hessones videlicet in Saxonum confinio positos. Quos cum 
similiter a paganicse superstitionis cultu magna ex parte con- 
verteret, multaque millia hominum baptismatis sacramento 
abluisset. St. Bonifac. Mogunt. Archiepisc, Vita, cap. 12; 
Script EcdesiasL, viii. ssec. Migne. Parisiis, 1863. 
10* H 



114 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

Pope Gregory the Siw^id, in a letter to the Ger- 
man clergy and h\ity eonnnendiug Boniface, use^ the 
same word to describe liis baptism. " Some persons,'^ 
says he, " who had no knowledge of God or of holy 
baptism, icere washed^ in water'' — that is, bathed in 
water. 

Pope Zacharias, in a letter to Boniface showing the 
need of baptism and of invoking the Trinity in aJ- 
ministering it, with special reference to the error of 
an Irish presbyter in Germany named Samson, \,1k) 
taught that a man might be made a Christian witli- 
out the bath of regeneration and without the invi»- 
cation of the Trinity, says : '' Whosoever has been 
ivashed without the invocation of the Trinity has not 
the sacrament of regeneration [baptism], as it is as- 
suredly true that if any one has been immersed in 
the baptismal fountain without the invocation of the 
Trinity, he has not been made perfect until he shall 
have been baptized in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. . . . Whosoever 
is immersed, the Trinity being invoked in gospel lan- 
guage after the rule laid down by the Lord, in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit, has that sacrament without doubt. . . . But 

^ Aliqiios vero, qui nee Dei eognitionem habentes, nee b.^p- 
tisniatis sacri unda sunt loti. Ep. III., Gregor. Papu IL. 
Script. Ecclesiast.y viii. sa^e. p. 50L Migne. Parisiis, 1863. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 115 

about those wJio immerse in the fountain of baptism 
without the invocation of the Trinity, it is known to 
thy fraternity that the series of sacred rules contains 
^oinetliing which we advise you to liokl tenaciously : 
' Be ye holy, as I also am holy.'" ^ Here there is no 
difficulty about the mode of baptism between the 
errorists of that day and the })ope. It was immer- 
sion in both cases. The evil which Zacharias sought 
to banish was the rejection of the names of the Trin- 
ity in the administration of baptism. The baptism, 
which he first calls washing, he describes as immer- 
sion three times afterward. 

Boniface had taken a solenui oath to obey Greg- 
ory the Second and his successors. In it he swears : 

^ Quicunque sine iuvoeatione Trinitatis lotus fuisset, sacra- 
mentiini regenerationis non liaberet. Quod omnino verum est, 
quia si inorsus in fonte baptisniatis quis fuit sine invocatione 
Trinitatis periectus non est, nisi fuerit in nomine Patris, et 
Filii, et Spiritus Sanoti baptizatus ... si evangelicis quis 
verbis, invocata Trinitate, juxta regulam a Domino positam, 
quieunque mei"sus esset in nomina Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus 
Saneti, quod sacramentum sine dubio haberet. . . . Sed de his 
(pii sine invocatione Trinitatis mergunt in fonte baptisniatis, 
fraternitati tui>3 notum est quid de illis sacrorum canonum 
series continet, quod et tenere te firm iter hortamur. . . . 
Sancti estote, quoniam et ego sanctus sum. Zach. Papce, 
Ep. XL, ad Bouif. Archiepisc, pp. 943, 994; Script. Ecclesi- 
ast., viii. scec. Migne, 1S(33. 



116 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

*' I, Boniface, bishop by the grace of God, will ren- 
der to you, blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, 
and to thy vicar, the blessed Pope Gregory, and 
his successors, allegiance in everything,^ and the 
purity of the holy catholic faith ; and I will abide 
in the unity of the same faith, by the help of God/' 
This was a new oath, voluntarily taken by Boniface, 
which he carried out to the letter in everything ; 
and there can be no doubt of his strict compliance 
with Zacharias's baptismal instructions in the im- 
mersion of candidates as well as in the sacred 
names invoked in the celebration of the ordinance. 
Trine immersion was universal among his coun- 
trymen in England, and those of them who left 
their country as missionaries buried the baptized in 
the waters. Willibrord, the honored predecessor of 
Boniface in one of his continental mission-fields, 
and one of his own countrymen, who had the great 
Alcuin for his biographer, was once in an island 
called Fositeland, from its god, Fosite ; and in that 
island, according to Alcuin, there was a fountain 
which boiled up, the water of which no one might 
presume to drink unless he did it secretly, because 
it was dedicated to the god. Alcuin declares that 

^ Omnem fidem ... in unitate ejusdem fidei Deo operante 
persistere. JuramenL quo S. Bonifac, Script. JEccles., viii. saec. 
Migne. Parisiis, 1863. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 117 

" Willibrord baptized three men in that fountain^ 
with the iDVOcation of the holy Trinity."^ The 
baptism took place in a fountain boiling up from 
bubbling springs and overflowing its sides. 

Immersion w^as the baptism of Willibrord of 
England and of Zacharias, whom Boniface w^as 
bound by a solemn oath to obey in religion in every- 
thing ; and Boniface administered immersion to the 
hundred thousand converts whom he baptized in 
Germany. 

Alcuin on Immersion. 

This distinguished Englishman w^as a graduate, 
and subsequently the principal, of the celebrated 
school at York, at that time the chief seat of learn- 
ing in Western Europe. He wrote freely and cor- 
rectly in Latin, and he was familiar with Greek and 
Hebrews He revised the Latin Vulgate, and pre- 
sented it to Charlemagne. He taught astronomy, 
philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, and theology in 
the court of Charlemagne, and he founded schools 
throughout the vast empire of that monarch at his 
expense and under his patronage. He wielded 
an influence over the emperor and Europe, over 
churches, states, and seats of learning, greater than 

* Tres homines in eo fonte cum invocatione sanctse Trinita- 
tis baptizavit. Vita St. Willibrordi, Patrol. Lat., vol. 101, p. 
700. Migne. Parisiis. 



118 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

any, other mai who lived in the eighth century. 
His religious opinions were in perfect harmony 
with the doctrines held by Christians in England, 
France, Germany, and Italy. He is therefore a 
first-rate witness for the general practices of bap- 
tism in his times. 

Trine Immersion. 

In a learned letter to the canons of Lyons he 
says: 

*^ Spain, formerly the nurse of tyrants, is now the 
nurse of schismatics. There, contrary to the universal ^ 
custom of the holy Church of God, a doubt in regard to 
baptism has been proclaimed. Certain persons affirm 
that there should be one immersion [only], performed 
with the invocation of the Trinity. The apostle 
seems to differ from that doctrine where he says, 
* For ye are buried with Christ by baptism.' Rom. 
vi. 4. And though this is to be understood figu- 
ratively, yet we know that Christ was three days 

^ Universalem sanctse Dei ecclesiae eonsuetudinem . . . 
affirmantes quidam sub invocatione Trinitatis unam esse mer- 
sionem agendam. . . . Possunt tres noctes tres mersiones, et 
tres dies elevationes designare ... in nomine sanctse Trini- 
tatis trina submersione baptizatur . . . epistolam vero quam 
a beato Gregorio de simpla mersione dicunt esse conscriptam. 
ALcuini Epistolce, Ep. 90 ; Patrol Led., vol. 100, pp. 289-293. 
Migne. Parisiis. 



a:es ajstd the nations. 119 

and three nights in the sepulchre. . . . The three 
nights may signify three immersions^ and the three 
days thrice lifting up from'^ [the water]. He cor- 
rectly quotes St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and Pope 
Leo the Great to prove that they administered bap- 
tism by trine immersion. '* This testimony,^' says he, 
^' was left to us by the chief teachers and most holy 
Fathers.^' He then appeals to the baptismal usages 
known to the canons of Lyons: "The Pagan be- 
comes one of the catechumens. He renounces Satan 
and all his hurtful pomps, etc., and in the name 
of the holy Trinity he is baptized by trine immer- 
sion.^* This is Alcuin's baptism, and the baptism 
of all Christians East and West when he wrote, ex- 
cept some Roman Catholics in Spain, who gave but 
one immersion in baptism. Alcuin proceeds to no- 
tice a letter of Pope Gregory the Great to Lean- 
der, a Spanish bishop, written in the end of the 
sixth century, in which he approves of a toleration 
for a single immersion in that country^ for certain 
reasons which he gives ; and Alcuin declares that 
" he did not find that letter in the book of his epis- 
tles which was brought to him from Rome, . . . and 
he doubted whether it was written by Gregory or 
by some founder of that party." 

Alcuin had considerable reason for doubting the 
genuineness of Gregory's letter, for he knew that 



120 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

all Europe, and all Christians outside of it, observed 
one baptism in three immersions, except some Span- 
iards who administered one immersion ; and this 
doubt of such a man as Alcuin about the authen- 
ticity of Gregory's letter is a strong proof of the 
" universal custom/^ as he calls it, of " trine immer- 
sion." If immersion, once or thrice, or pouring or 
sprinkling, were all usual and held in equal esteem, 
why does the most intelligent man of the age send 
to Rome for Gregory's Book of Epistles to see if the 
pope had written a letter tolerating one immersion 
in Spain and exacting three elsewhere? It was a 
long and costly and dangerous journey to Rome, 
and it is clear that Alcuin recognized no baptism 
but trine immersion, or he would never have sent 
to Rome on such a business ; and he believed there 
should be no other in Spain than the plungings 
practised in all other countries. 

And when Alcuin failed to find the letter among 
Gregory's Epistles, he concluded that it must be a 
forgery, as no pope could set aside the trine immer- 
sion administered in all the churches for ages. 

But Gregory did write the letter, and kept no 
copy of it. Leander received and preserved it. 
The same thing happened to other epistles of the 
same pope, copies of which were not in his Book of 
Epistles in Alcuin's time. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 121 

It would have amazed Alcuin to have sei n the 
work of a descendant of one of his adopted Ger- 
man fellow-citizens, had he been able to look down 
the ages, and to have read in it that his imperial 
patron " Charles sufficiently experienced how little 
durable was the conversion of the Saxons, when at 
his command hundreds at the same moment stepped 
into a river and had water poured over them in 
sign of baptism." ^ Alcuin saw these Saxons bap- 
tized on several occasions ; and if he had given an 
account of w^hat he witnessed, he would have de- 
scribed them as being driven into the river, and as 
having been immersed three times, and he would 
not have uttered a w^ord about pouring, for Alcuin 
was a writer of strict veracity. 

On another occasion Alcuin writes about baptism : 

*^ In the name of the holy Trinity a man is bap- 
tized by trine immersion^ and he who was made for 
an image of the sacred Trinity, by the invocation 
of the holy Trinity is directly restored to the same 
image." ^ 

In a treatise On the Divine Offices Alcuin writes 

of baptism : 

-» 

^ Kohlrausch^s History of Germany, p. 97. New York. 
1870. 
^ Trina submersione. Alcuini de Baptismi CceremoniiSf 

Patrol. Lat., vol. 101, p. 614. Migne. Parisiis. 
11 



122 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

" Then the priest baptizes the infant by trine im- 
mersion, invoking the holy Trinity only once, and 
speaking thus : ' I baptize^ you in the name of the 
Father/ and he immerses him once ; ' and of the 
Son/ and he immerses him again; 'and of the Holy 
Spirit/ and he immerses him a third time." Such 
is the testimony of Alcuin — the Dr. Francis Way- 
land of the eighth century — about the mode of 
baptism in his day. 

Descriptions of Immersion sent to Charle- 
magne AT his own KeQUEST BY TwO OF HIS 

Bishops. 

In the works of Charles the Great the following ac- 
counts of baptism are given by two of his prelates : 

" What the Greeks call baptism [baptism is a 
Greek word] is called immersion by the Latins, The 
infant is immersed three times in the holy font, that 
triple immersion may figuratively exhibit the three days' 
burial of Christ. The lifting up from the waters is a 
likeness of Christ risiyig from the graved ^ 

^ Deinde baptizat eum sacerdos sub trina mersione . . . 
ego te baptizo in nomine Patris, et mergat semel ; et Filii, et 
mergat iterum ; et Spiritus Sancti, et mergat tertio. De Dim 
Offic, cap. 19; Patrolog. Lat, vol. 101, p. 1219. Migne. 
Parisiis. 

2 Latine tinetio dicitur, infans ter mergitur in sacro fonte 
lit sepulturam tridiianam Christi tiina demersio mystice de- 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 123 

The second writes : " Thus a man made for an 
image of the Holy Trinity, dipped by trine immer- 
sion^ iL. the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Spirit, is restored to the image of 
tlie same Trinity." ^ 

Eabanus Maurus on Immersion. 

This distinguished man, after presiding over the 
great abbey of Fulda for twenty years, and found- 
ing a seminary for the education of clergymen, which 
sent forth many able ministers, became Archbishop of 
Mentz in 847. His conspicuous abilities as a teacher 
and writer placed him at the head of the German 
bishops, and conferred honor upon his great instruc- 
tor, Alcuin. Treating of baptism, he says : 

"After these things the fountain is consecrated, 
and the candidate draws near to baptism itself; and 
thus in the name of the holy Trinity he is baptized 
by trine imme^^sion; . . . baptism ought therefore to be 
conferred by trine immersion with the invocation of the 
holy Trinity,''^ 

signaret, et ab aquis elevatio Christi resurgentis instar est de 
sepnlcro. Carolus Magnus, ii. p. 940. Migne. Parisiis, 1862. 

^ Trina subinersione tinctus. Ihid., p. 938. 

'^ Trina submersione baptizatur . . . oportet ergo cum in- 
vocatione Sanctae Trinitatis sub trina mersionebaptismumcon- 
fici. Lib. de Sacr. Ordin., cap. 14 ; Patrol. Lai.y vol. 112, p. 
1175. Migne. Parisiis. 



124 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

Haymo, Bishop of Halberstadt, on Im- 
mersion. 

Haymo was a disciple of Alcuin. He flourished 
about the middle of the ninth century. He was the 
intimate friend of Rabanus Maurus. Commenting 
on Romans vi. 4, he says of Christ : 

" He himself arose on the third day alive, and 
we, after a third immersion, shall arise to life from 
the death of sins J' ^ 

WiLAFRID StRABO (oR StRABUS) AND IM- 
MERSION. 

This author was a German abbot who lived in the 
ninth century. He wrote in prose and poetry, and 
his works possess learning and merit. Of baptism 
he says : 

" In the beginning believers were freely baptized in 
rivers or fountains. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, 
to consecrate the same laver for us, was baptized by 
John in the Jordan. And we read elsewhere that 
John was baptizing in Enon near Salim, because 
there was much water there. And Philip the evan- 
gelist baptized the eunuch in a fountain which he 
found by the way, 

^ Post ternara mersionem resurgemiis de morte. Expos, 
in Epist. ad Rom., Patrol. Lai., vol. 117, p. 412. Migne. 
Parisiis. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 125 

" Some want trine immersion, because of its resem- 
blance to the three days' burial [of Christ], and 
because the Apostolic Canons and the custom of the 
Romans required it.^ 

^' Othei^s contended for a single immersion to exhibit 
the unity of the Godhead.^' Strabo then refers to the 
controversy in the Fourth Council of Toledo about 
trine and single immersion, and to the letter of 
Pope Gregory the Great advising the Spaniards to 
practise one immersion for the sake of their Arian 
neighbors, though declaring that the Romans ad- 
ministered baptism with three immersions. He then 
adds : *' It is to be noticed that many were baptized, 
not only by immersion, but by pouring water over 
them ; and if there was any necessity ' baptism could 
still be administered in that way ; as in the Passion 
of the blessed Laurence we read that a certain per- 
son was baptized from a pitcher brought in. This 
was customary when the height of very tall persons 
would not permit them to be dipped in small bap- 
tisteries.'* 

^ Primo simplicitiir in fluviis vel fontibas baptizatos cre- 
dentes. . . . Alii trinam immersioneni volunt . . . et Roman- 
orum consuetudo observat. 

2 Alii unam propter divinitatis unitatem contendunt . . . 

noil solem mergendo, verum etiam desuper fundendo ... si 

nece^.sitas sit. De Rebus Eccles., Patrol. LaL, vol. 114, pp. 

957-959. Migne. Parisiis. 
11* 



126 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

St. Laurence was martyred about A. d. 258, and 
the work in which Strabo read the story of the man 
whom Laurence baptized by pouring — The Acts of 
St Laurence — is notoriously mixed with falsehoods/ 
and can gather no authority from the fact that 
Strabo quoted it, for sacred forgeries were alarm- 
ingly numerous long before his day. And as the 
practice of immersion in baptism in the time of 
St. Laurence was universal except in the case of 
a handful of Clinics — so small that they scarcely 
deserve to be named — the story is unworthy of 
notice. Strabo appeals to no occurrence of pour- 
ing in his day except vi case of necessity. Immer- 
sion, trine or single, was the baptism of Christen- 
dom. 

Kegino on Immersion. 

Regino was Abbot of Prum, in the diocese of 
Treves, in the end of the ninth and in the begin- 
ning of the tenth century. He was regarded as an 
author of some standing in his own times, and men 
who love to examine the writings of the distant past 
still read Abbot Regino. In his work on Ecclesi- 
astical Discipline he says : 

" Those whom we baptize we immerse three times ; 

' Wall's History of Infant Baptism, part ii. chap. ix. 2, p. 
710. Nashville, 1860. 



AGES AND THE NATIOXS. 127 

and we instruct them to renounce in words Satan 
and his angels/'^ 

St. Bruno and Immersion. 

Bruno in the eleventh century was twelve years 
Bishop of Wiirtzburg. He was Duke of Carinthia, 
but preferred the service of God to the pursuits 
w^hich generally engaged nobles. He wrote ex- 
positions of the ancient creeds and of the Psalms. 
Commenting upon the word '^ deluge " in one of 
the Psalms, he says : 

'' Here deluge signifies baptism, or the imters of 
baptism, through which a man is purified, as the 
world was cleansed by the Deluge.'^ ^ 

According to St. Bruno, baptism covers the bap- 
tized person with water just as completely as the 
Deluge covered the earth. Of the completeness of 
its submersion there can be no question. 

Immersions in Pomerania. 
Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, in the year 1124 was 

* Ter mergimus quos baptizamus. De Eccles, Dis., Patrol, 
LaL, vol. 132, p. 338. Migne. Parisiis. 

^ Hie significat diluvium baptismum sive aquas baptismi. 
Expos. Psal, Patrologice Lat, vol. 142, p. 129. Migne. Par- 
isiLs. 



128 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

preachiug as a missionary in Pomerania, and in Py- 
ritz he gathered a large body of converts. " Seven 
days," says Neander, " were spent by the bishop in 
giving instruction. Three days were appointed for 
spiritual and bodily preparation to receive the ordi- 
nance of baptism. They held a fast and bathed 
themselves, that they might with cleanliness and de- 
cency submit to the sacred ordinance. Large vessels 
filled with water were sunk in the ground and sur- 
rounded with curtains. Behind these bajMsm was 
administered, in the form customary at that period, 
by immersion. During their twenty days' residence 
in this town seven thousand we^re baptized, and the 
persons baptized were instructed in the matters con- 
tained in the confession of faith and respecting the 
most important acts of worship." ^ 

Rupert on Immersion. 

Rupert, Abbot of Deutz, in Germany, on the 
banks of the Rhine, opposite Cologne, in the tw^elfth 
century, w^as an author of great industry. But of 
his numerous works his commentary on almost the 
entire Scriptures is best known. He speaks of bap- 
tism in the following terms : 

^ Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Churchy 
vol. vi. p. 8. Boston, 1865. 



AGES ASD THE ^'ATiO^XS. 129 

" Otherwise wliy by trine immersion are we baptized 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Spirit?"^ 

Luther and Immersion. 

The great German Reformer, who rendered harm- 
less the thunders of the Vatican and inflicted blows 
upon the Papacy from which it will never recover, 
speaks strongly in favor of immersion. In his essay 
On the Sacrament of Baptism he begins with the fol- 
lowing : 

" First, baptism is a Greek word. In Latin it can 
be translated immersion, as when ive plunge something 
into water that it may be completely covered idth water ; 
and although that custom has been given up by most 
persons, for they do not wholly submerge the chil- 
dren, but only pour on a little w^ater, yet they ought 
to be completely immersed and straightivay drawn 
owty ^ Such is the testimony of one of the greatest 

^ Alioque cur sub trina mersione baptizamur ? . . . Trin, ei 
Oper., Patrol. Lai., vol. 167, p. 1034. Migne. Parisiis. 

'^ Primo nomen baptismus Grsecum est ; Latine potest verti 
mersio, cum immergimus aliquid in aquam, ut totum tegatur 
aqua. Et quamvis ille mos jam aboleverit apud plerosque 
(neque enim totos demergunt pueros, sed tantum paucula aqua 
perfundunt) debebant tamen prorsus immergi, et statim re- 
trahi. , . . De Sacram. JBapt., Opera Lutheri, vol. i. fol. p. 319, 

1564. 

I 



130 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

iustruments ever used by Jehovah to exteud the 
empire of truth. 

Counsel and Advice of Dr. Martin Luther 
TO A Minister [as to] how a Jewess [a 
Virgin] is to be Baptized. Anno, 1530. 

[Translated fkom the German by the Rev. J. S. 

GUBELMANN, PHILADELPHIA.] 

*' Grace and peace in the Lord : It is not neces- 
sary, dear pastor, to remind you that you are first, 
for a time, diligently to instruct the person who is 
to be baptized regarding the sum of the Ten Com- 
mandments, of the Christian faith [creed or confes- 
sion], and of the Lord's Prayer; also concerning 
what baptism is, what it benefits and signifies. 

" But as regards the [her] public baptism, I am 
content that, covered with a cloth (as women in the 
bath), she shall sit in a tub, with the water reaching 
to the neck,^ clad with the bathing-cloth, and that 
she shall be three times dipped with the head into 
the water ^ by the baptizer, with the usual words — 
namely, * I baptize thee in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' . . . 

'^ The dead also are clad with a white garment or 
winding-sheet, thereby to remind us of our baptism, 

' Im Wasser bis an den Hals reichend. 

^ Mit deni Haupt dreimal ins Wasser getaucht wiirde. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 131 

by which we are with Christ buried into death, etc. 
By both, by baptism and by death, the resurrection 
of the dead is signified and expressed, as baptism 
itself is nothing else than a passage through death 
into the future eternal life. 

" You may also give to her my greeting in Christ 
and service of Christian love. Farewell in the 
Lord. From my solitude. Anno MDXXX.'' ' 

In Luther's small Catechism, Halle edition, print- 
ed and published by Christoph Salfeld's Wittwe 
und Erben [widow and heirs of Christoph Salfeld] 
in the year 1713, the following passage occurs in 
the appendix to the Catechism,^ added to give in- 
struction and direction concerning baptism : 

"Do you wish to be baptized? Yes. 

" Thereupon let him take the infant and dip ^ it 
into the baptism,* saying, *I baptize thee in the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost.' " 

^ Luther'' s Works, 1560 (in 8 folio volumes), vol. i., p. 183. 

'^ Anhang oder Tauf biiclilein. 

^ The word here used by Luther, " tauchen," cannot pos- 
sibly mean anything else than " to dip/^ as all who under- 
stand the German language will grant. J. S. G. 

* Tauche es in die Taufe. 



132 THE BAPTISM OF THE 



SWITZEELAND. 

John Calvin and Immersion. 

The Reformer of Geneva possessed a penetrating 
and powerful intellect, an extensive and accurate 
acquaintance with the divine word, the ancient 
Fathers, and the beliefs and practices of Christians 
of all ages, and a royal influence over a multitude 
of believers in many lands and generations. 

The apostle Paul, Augustine of Hippo, and John 
Calvin were three of the mightiest ministers ever 
commissioned by the Saviour. Of baptism Calvin 
writes : 

"And that he as truly and certainly performs 
these things internally on our souls as we see that 
our bodies are externally washed^ submerged, and 
enclosed in water '' [when baptized].^ Again : 

** Whether the baptized person is wholly immersed, 
and that three times or once, or whether water is 
only poured or sprinkled upon him, is of no con- 
sequence. In that matter churches ought to be free, 

^ Videmus corpus nostrum extra ablui, submergi, circum- 
dari. Instit, Christ. Belig., lib. iv. cap. 15, sec. 14, p. 641. 
London, 1576. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 133 

according to the difference of countries. The very 
word baptize, however, signifies to immerse; and it is 
certain that immersion was observed by the ancient 
Church:' ' 

Our Presbyterian brethren in this country, the 
direct followers of Calvin, refuse the liberty of 
baptizing by single or trine immersion, as well as 
by pouring or sprinkling, as we have lately no- 
ticed in their disapproval of the immersion ad- 
ministered by the Rev. Mr. Clark, one of their 
ministers in this State. 

As the very word baptize means to immerse, and 
as it is certain that the ancient Church immersed the 
baptized, according to Calvin, how is it that a sturdy 
Presbyterian like Calvin should license any change ? 

^ Quanquam et ipsum baptizandi verbum mergere significat, 
et mergendi ritum veteri ecclesise observatum fuisse constat. 
Instit. Christ Belig,, lib. iv. cap. 15, sec. 19, p. 644. London, 
1576. 
12 



134 THE BAPTISM OF THE 



ITALY. 

Clinic Baptisms, or Baptisms "for Death" 
AND Baptism " for Life '' in the Primitive 
Church. 

Many of the early Christians after the days of 
the apostles fell into the pestilent heresy that by 
baptism their sins were remitted ; and while they 
universally and earnestly insisted that immersion 
was the only baptism for the living and healthy, yet 
to secure forgiveness through baptism for the dying 
they created two other baptisms. The first was 
pouring water all over a dying man who could not 
be immersed, so that he was as completely drenched 
with it as if he had been plunged in it. This bap- 
tism was regarded with toleration for the dying only. 
If a man recovered from threatened death, his bap- 
tism was regarded as defective, and it disqualified 
him from ministerial service except under certain 
conditions. Dr. Cave, the Episcopalian author of 
Primitive Christianity, says of clinic baptism — that 
is, the baptism of those who were in their beds 
through disease — that " it was accounted a less 
solefnm and perfect kind of baptism, partly because 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 135 

it was done, not by immersion, but by sprinkling — 
partly because persons were supposed at such a 
time to desire it chiefly out of a fear of death." ^ 

The historian Eusebius says: "It was not lawful 
to promote one baptized by pouring on his sick bed 
to any order of the clergy.'' ^ And while occasion- 
ally favoritism or necessity might set this order 
aside, yet for a great while the stigma of a vital 
defect rested upon couch baptism if the diseased 
person w^as restored. 

Eusebius quotes with approval a description of 
clinic baptism by Cornelius, Bishop of Eome, in 
which he expresses doubts about the validity of 
Novatian's baptism, who was "poured around" in 
a time of sickness, and he adds, " If, indeed, it be 
proper to say that one like him did receive bap- 
tism." The Council of Neo-Csesarea in its twelfth 
canon decreed that " if any man was baptized only 
in time of sickness, he shall not be ordained a 
presbyter, because his faith was not voluntary, un- 
less his subsequent faith and diligence recommend 
him, or else the scarcity of men makes it necessary 
to ordain him."^ Chrysostom doubted the salva- 
tion of such men. "They receive baptism," says 

^ Cavers Primitive Christianityj p. 150. Oxford, 1840. 
2 Eccles. Hist, vi. 43, p. 244. Parisiis, 1659. 
* Bingham's Antiquities, book iv. chap. 3, sec. 11. 



136 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

he, "lying upon their beds, you receive it in the 
bosom of the Church. They receive it weeping, 
and you with joy. They with groans, and you 
with thanksgiving. While the sacrament is ad- 
ministered children cry, the wife tears her hair, 
friends are dejected, servants weep, the whole house 
is in mourning ; and if you observe the spirit of the 
sick person you shall find it more full of sorrow 
than that of the bystanders." ^ Chrysostom's ^ idea 
of a sick-bed baptism is the opinion we entertain 
of the death-bed repentance of one whom God had 
often called, but whose ears were stopped until he 
felt that he was just stepping into his presence, and 
then, while terror was his master, he would be bap- 
tized somehow, giving a sorrowful illustration of 
the doctrine that " conscience doth make cowards 
of us all." 

These sick-bed professors on their recovery were 
greeted with sneers, and their piety subjected to 
merriment. The clergy sometimes had to appeal 
to Christians to treat them as brethren, and not 
as slaves driven to make a profession of faith 
through fear. It was common to call them " Clin- 

1 Bupiuy i. p. 319. Dublin, 1773. 

2 This article is placed with Italian descriptions of baptism 
and baptisms, because Novatian, the most notorious clinic of 
all time, was a Roman presbyter. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 137 

ics," instead of Christians, The word ineaus liter- 
ally a bed, and as applied to those baptized on 
their couches it contained the idea that they were 
ailing disciples, professors from fright, sick-bed ser- 
vants of God, who were not likely to honor him in 
health. Cyprian is indignant at these reproaches, 
and gives utterance to his feelings in these words: 
"As to the nickname which some have thought fit 
to fix upon those who have thus [by baptism on 
their beds] obtained the grace of Christ through 
his saving water and through faith in him, and 
their calling such persons Clinics instead of Chris- 
tians, I am at a loss to find out the original of this 
appellation," etc.^ 

But clinic baptism never spread, and the number 
of times when it occurred is very much smaller than 
is commonly supposed. It could only exist, even to 
a limited extent, when believers' baptism was the 
custom of Christians, when a host of men like 
Constantino the Great and Ambrose and Augus- 
tine, with Christian principles, remained unbap- 
tized after reaching adult or mature years. As 
infant baptism became general, the candidate never 
put oflf baptism through shame or fear, or to have 
all his sins washed out just before entering heaven ; 
and as a consequence clinic baptism declined, and 

1 Ep. 76, ad Magnum, pp. 121, 122. Coloiuse, 1607. 
12* 



138 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

was limited to dying babes. But a brand marked 
clinic baptism as long as it existed. 

More than a century after Novatian had his 
memorable baptism by " pouring around/' Socrates, 
the historian, tells us that a Jew had been confined 
to his bed by paralysis, and liad been benefited 
neither by medical skill nor by the prayers of his 
Jewish brethren, and that he determined to have 
recourse to Christian baptism. 

Atticus, the Archbishop of Constantinople, in- 
structed him in the first principles of Christian 
truth, and preached to him the hope in Christ, and 
then, instead of going to his bed and pouring water 
around him, he directed him to be brought in his 
bed to the font. And the paralytic Jew receiving 
baptism with a sincere faith, as soon as he was 
taken out of the water found himself perfectly cured 
of his disease.^ In the Centurm Magdeburgenses it 
is said of this convert, "ife was brought^ together 
with his bed, to the baptistery, a7id he was let down 
into the sacred font, and on the completion of the 
rite he was lifted up again from itJ^ ^ This baptism 
occurred at the capital of the empire and of the 
intelligence of the Eastern world, and it is clear 

^ Ecdes. Hist., vii. 4. 

2 In sacrum lavacrum demissus, et, peracto ritu, inde rur- 
sum levatus. Centu. Magde., iv p. 576. Noriraburgae, 1765. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 139 

testimony that even the paralyzed shunned pouring 
around for baptism, and that such an act was only 
"the forlorn hope" of the dying — an act which 
should be carefully avoided by all who wanted 
obedience without serious defects. 

Martyrdom was the second baptism for the depart- 
ing. If a man, without baptism in water, died by 
the persecutions of the Saviour's enemies because 
he loved Jesus, he was regarded by the primitive 
Christians as baptized; and his baptism in his own 
blood, it was universally understood, would wash 
away his sins. Cyprian says of unbaptized catechu- 
mens who were slain for Jesus' sake: "These were 
not deprived of the sacrament of baptism, since 
they were baptized in the most glorious and power- 
ful baptism of their own blood." ^ But this was a 
baptism for the grave, and valid only if the man 
departed. If he recovered after being half or two- 
thirds martyred, he must be immersed in water to 
have his sins forgiven. 

The ancient Christians, after the apostles, had two 
baptisms for those going into eternity — profuse pour- 
ing and martyrdom. If the man recovered, the 
first was regarded as defective; the second could 
only have value when completed by death. But 
for those in health there was hut one baptism, and 

' Cypr. Ep. 73, ad Jub., p. 108. Colonic, 1607. 



140 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

it was the complete immersion of the ivhole body in 
water. 

Justin Martyr and Immersion. 

The reputation of this sufferer for Jesus as a man 
of intelligence and as a believer of undoubted piety 
has always stood high in the Church of Christ. 
Treating of baptism, he writes : 

"As many as are persuaded and believe that the 
things which we teach and declare are true, and 
promise that they are determined to live accord- 
ingly, are taught to pray to God, and to beseech 
him with fasting to grant them remission for theii 
past sins, while we also pray and fast with them. 
We then lead them to a place where there is water^ 
and there they are regenerated in the same manner as 
we also were ; for they are then ivashed in that water 
in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the 
universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of 
the Holy Spirit." This is Professor Coleman's trans- 
lation.^ He makes the following comment upon the 

^ "'Eliretra ayovrac vf rj^G)v evOa vdcop eort , . , to ev t(j vdari 
T&TE AovTpov TTocovvrat, Just. Philos. et Mart., Apol. I. Pro 
Christ, Patrologia Grceca, vol. vi. p. 240. Migne. Parisiis, 
1857. 

' Ancient Christianity Exemplified^ p. 271. Philadelphia, 
1852. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 141 

statemeDt of Justin in another part of his work : 
" Justin Martyr gives us the first and intelligible 
account of a Christian baptism [after the New 
Testament]. The conducting of the candidate to a 
place where there is imter, and then baptizing him, 
instead of causing water to be brought, seems to 
intimate that at this time the Eastern Church, or 
at least the Church of Ephesus, had begun to baptize 
by immersion.'^ ^ Dr. Coleman gives his views with 
a frankness which Justin's simple words in the 
original Greek w^ould naturally inspire. The re- 
nowned martyr and apologist for Christianity, like 
his Master, the Son of Mary, was an immersionist 
beyond a doubt. 

Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, on Baptism. 

The world has had many greater but few better 
men than St. Ambrose. He entered a church in 
Milan as governor to quiet a violent controversy 
about a successor to Auxentius, the dead Arian 
bishop. While in the sacred edifice he was unan- 
imously proclaimed bishop, though not yet baptized. 
He accepted the oflace, and he discharged its duties 
in a spirit of fearless fidelity, and he lived to stand 
among the first bishops in the Christian world. In 

^ Coleman's Ancient Christianity ExempIifiedj^.SQS. Phila- 
delphia, 1852. 



142 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

the little work he wrote — On the Sacraments — he 
says to a baptized person: 

"Thou wast asked, Dost thou believe in God, 
tlie omnipotent Father ? and thou saidst, I believe ; 
arid thou wast immersed — that is, thou wast buried. 
Again thou w^ast asked, Dost thou believe in our 
Lord Jesus Christ and in his cross ? and thou saidst, 
I believe ; and thou ivast immersed, and therefore 
thou wast buried ivith Chi^ist^ for he who is buried 
with Christ shall rise with Christ. A third time 
tliou wast asked. Dost thou believe in the Holy 
Spirit ? and thou saidst, I believe ; and a third 
time thou ivast immersed; . . . for when thou dost 
immerse, thou dost form a likeness of death and 
burial."^ Ambrose uses the language of Paul as 
correctly as if he had been a Baptist. 

Pope Leo the Great and Immersion. 
Leo became Pope of Rome A. d. 440. Like 
Gregory VII. and Innocent III., he was endowed 
with splendid talents. In any position in human 
society, and in any age of earthly history, Leo 
would have shone as a star of the first magnitude. 

' Mersisti, hoc est, sepiiltiis es, . . . et mersisti, ideo et 
Christo es consepultus : qui enim Christo consepelitur cum 
Christo resurgit, . . . tertio mersisti . . . cum enim mergis, 
mortis suscipis et sepulturae similitudinem. De Sa<yi'amentiSj 
liu. iv. 7 ; Patrol. LaL, vol. 16, p. 448. Migne. Parisiis. 



AGES AXP THE NATIONS. 143 

Nothing of importance to the interests of Christen- 
dom during his pontificate was efiected without his 
powerful assistance. He gave the see of Rome 
more help in her efibrts to secure the mastery of 
Christ's Church than any of his predecessors. Few 
of the popes have had "GVea^' added to their 
names, and few of them have deserved it ; but 
Leo's shining abilities justly earned this title. 
Speaking of baptism, he says : 

" Trine immer'sion is an imitation of the thre€ days' 
burial [0/ Chrisf], and the elevation from the waters 
is a figure [0/ the Saviour'] rimng from the graved ^ 
These words of Leo were used for centuries by the 
Church teachers of the Old World, as the Nicene 
Creed was quoted as a general expression of ortho- 
doxy. 

St. Maximus, Bishop of Turin, and 
Immersion. 

This prelate was the author of sixty-three hom- 
ilies that have come down to our times. Though 
not a man of remarkable ability, he possessed an 
unusual amount of piety. His works were pub- 
lished in Paris, with the writings of Pope Leo the 

^ Sepulturam triduanam imitatur trina demersio, et ab 
aquis elevatio, resurgentis instar est de sepulcro. Ep. 16 St, 
Leo. Mag., Patrol Lai., vol. 54, p. 699. Migne. Parisiis. 



144 THE BAPTISAI OF THE 

Great, in 1623. He was Bishop of Turin in the 
latter part of the fifth century. Of baptism and 
of the baptized he writes : 

^' After you promised to believe we plunged your 
bodies three times in the sacred fountaiii. This order 
of baptism is observed to express a double mystery ; 
for ye are rightly immersed three times who have 
been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, who 
arose on the third day from the dead ; for this im- 
mersion, thrice repeated, is a figure of our Lord's 
burial, through which ye are buried with Christ in 
baptism, that ye may rise again with Christ in faith ; 
that, washed from sins, you may live by imitating 
Christ in the sanctity of virtues." ^ 

Arator's Description of Baptism. 

Arator was born in Italy, and flourished from 
A. D. 527 to A. D. 544. He followed for a time the 
legal profession, then he became an officer in the 
palace of King Athalaric. Pope Vigilius made 
him a subdeacon of the Church of Rome. 

In his poetical account of the facts recorded in 

^ Tertio corpora vestra in sacro fonte demersimus. . . . 
Recte enim tertio mersi estis. Ilia enim tertio repetita de- 
mersio . . . per quam Christo consepuiti estis in baptismo. 
S. Maxim. Episc. Tauren., De Bap., Fatrol. Lai., vol. 57, p. 
778. Migne. Parisiis. 



AGKS AND THE NATIONS. 145 

the Acts of the Apostles, speaking of tlie Pente- 
costal converts, he says: 

" The Shepherd multiplied the sheep, and he 
washed not less than three thousand of the common 
people ill the river of the Lamb on that day. Here 
first by the command of God the practice of bap- 
tism arose." ^ 

Speaking of the baptism of the eunuch, he 
writes : " The abounding faith of the eunuch began 
hastily to burn for the waters in sight; and, im- 
mersed in the gulf, he laid aside the burden of the 
serpent." ^ 

Pope Gregory the Great and Immersion. 

Gregory the Great was chosen pope at the end of 
the sixth century. He honestly and earnestly tried 
to be relieved of the responsibility and honor of the 
Roman see, but he did not succeed ; and his mod- 
esty greatly increased his popularity. The success 
of his mission to the Pagan English extended his 
fame among all Christian nations. He was warm- 
hearted and sincerely religious ; he was sometimes 

^ Flumina deluit Agni . . . baptismatis usus exoritur. Be 
Actibus ApostoL, lib. i. 77; Patrol Lat, vol. 68, p. 114. 
Migne. Parisiis. 

^ Conspectis properanter aquis . . . gurgite mersiis. Ibid., 
lib. i. 132 ; vol. 68, p. 152. 

13 K 



146 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

tyrannical and superstitious ; he was modest and he 
was meddlesome; he was great in zeal, in shrewd- 
ness, and in the estimation of all Christians; he 
was for a few years the most influential man in 
Christendom. No pope was ever more venerated 
than the first of the Gregories. Of baptism this 
pope writes: 

" The body is immersed, the soul is washed." ^ 
This declaration is clear enough about immersion, 
and no hint is given that pouring or sprinkling 
will do as well. 

When Gregory became pope the Arians in Spain 
were numerous and annoying. Like Christians in 
all other lands, they had three immersions in bap- 
tism, and they said that the immersion in the name 
of the Father, coming first, showed that the Father 
was above the Son and the Spirit — that the second 
and the third immersions were but inferior honors for 
persons subordinate to the Father. This argument 
against the divinity of the Son and of the Spirit 
was extensively used, and it was felt by many to be 
very powerful. To oppose this heresy some of the 
orthodox conceived the idea of having but one im- 
mersion in the three sacred names, which must bestow 
undivided and equal honor upon each person in the 

* Corpus intingitur, anima abluitur. Gregor. Mag», torn. 
V. ; Patrol. Lai.y vol. 79, p. 493. Migne. Parisiis. 



.AGES AND THE NATIONS. 147 

Trinity. One immersion, however, was considered an 
innovation, and many denounced it as if it were not 
baptism, just as a man's arm is not the man. To 
obtain the assistance of Gregory's great popularity, 
Leander, Bishop of Seville, the leading prelate of 
Spain, wrote for the pope's opinion on the disputed 
question. Gregory sent a reply, from which we 
quote : 

"About the three immersions in baptism , no one 
could answer more truly than you yourself have 
judged. We immerse ^ three times, to show the mys- 
tery of the three days' burial, and that the infant 
drawn out of the waters may show forth the resur- 
rection on the third day. But if any one thinks 
that this is done for veneration of the exalted Trin- 
ity, immersing but once in the waters in baptizing 
brings no opposition to that, because whilst in three 
subsistences there is one substance, there will be no 
fault in immersing once or three times , since in three 
^ De trina mersione baptisraatis nil responderi verius potest 
quam sensisti. Nos autem quod tertio mergimus triduange 
sepulturse sacramenta signamus, ut dum tertio infans ab aquis 
educitur, resiirrectio triduani temporis exprematur . . . rep- 
rehensible esse nuUatenus potest infantem in baptismate ^el 
ter, Yel semel mergere, quando et in tribus mersionibus per- 
sonarum trinitas, et in una potest divinitatis singularitas desig- 
nari. Gregor. Mag.^ torn. iii. ep. 43, ad Leand, ; Patrol, Lat, 
vol. 77, pp. 497, 498. Migne. Parisiis. 



148 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

immersions the trinity of persons can he represented^ 
and in one the unity of the Godhead, But because 
now, even by heretics, the infant is immersed three 
times in baptism, I think among you it should not 
be done, lest while we count up the immersions, they 
divide the Godhead/' 

Gregory was a pontiff of whom Catholics in all 
ages have been proud, and whom other Christians 
have regarded with favor. Thoroughly versed in 
the customs of all Christians, he was competent to 
testify about the universal mode of baptism. Greg- 
ory knew nothing of sprinkling or pouring in bap- 
tism. If either had been customary, how easy it 
would have been to tell Leander, what so many 
are accustomed to say at the present day, that 
" the mode of baptism was of no account ; anything 
would serve if water was used " ! But Gregory 
only knew of triple or single immersion in baptism. 

Maxentius of Aquila and Immersion. 

Maxentius owed his exalted ecclesiastical dignity 
to the special favor of the Emperor Lothaire. He 
presided over his see in the early part of the ninth 
century. Of baptism he writes : 

" In the name of the holy Trinity they are baptized 
by trine immersion, and the man who was made in 
the image of the holy Trinity is properly restored 



AGES AND IHE NATIONS. 149 

to the same image a second time by the invocation 
of the sacred Trinity." ^ 

The Koman Cathlic Church and Immersion. 

A committee appointed by the Council of Trent 
compiled a system of divinity called the Catechism 
of the Council of Trent, and three years after the 
dissolution of the council the Catechism was given 
to the world by command of Pope Pius V. In this 
work it is said : 

" Wherefore, baptism by the apostle is called a 
bath ; ^ but the ablution is not rendered more perfect 
when any one is immersed in water, although we 
perceive that this mode was long observed from the 
earliest times in the Church, than either by the pour- 
ing of water, which we recognize as a frequent 
practice now, or by sprinkling."^ The Catechism 
decreed by the Council of Trent and issued by 
Pope Pius V. declares that immersion was long 
observed, and that from the earliest times of the 
Church. No statement could be given by the 

* Trina submersione baptizatur. Patrol. Lat., vol. 106, p. 
57. Migne. Parisiis. 

2 Vulgate, Titus iii. 5, per lavacrum regenerationis. 

^ Ablutio autem non magis fit, quiim aliquis aqua mergi- 

tur, quod diu a primis temporibus in ecclesia observatum 

animadvertimus. Catech. Cone. Trident., p. 136. Lipsiae, 

1865. 

13* 



150 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

Eoman Catholic CLurcli of greater authority on 
any question than this solemn assurance in regard 
to the baptism of the early ages. 

An Immeesiox by a Eomax Catholic Priest 
IN Milan, witnessed by Howard Ma loom, 
D. D., LL.D. 

The doctor writes in 1S75 : 

"When I was visiting portions of Europe in 
1830, I went to Milan in Italy to see the Duomo, 
or cathedral, second only to St. Peter's in Eome. 
While survevino- the vast interior I noticed a small 
party entering the principal door. They proceeded 
to something at one side which looked like a high- 
post bedstead with crimson curtains. As they ap- 
proached it, it Avas rolled out on wheels, and I saw 
that it was a beautiful baptistery made of marble, 
holding water about four feet deep, and of the size 
used in America for adult baptisms. 

" I approached the party, which stood at one side, 
while a handsome priest stood at the other. When 
he had recited the appointed liturgy, he stretched out 
his hands toward one of the babes. The lady stand- 
ing by the nurse unfastened its dress at the neck, 
and with one skilful effort removed all its clothing, 
leaving it wrapped round and round with a s\vad- 
dliug-cloth fiom head to foot. The priest received 



AGES AND THE XATIOKS. 151 

it, and taking his place at the side of the font, he 
carefully lowered the child into the water, with the 
appropriate form of words. I stood at the end 
of the baptistery, and not one of the little ones 
made any outcry, and of course they could not 
kick. 

" As the party was dispersing I respectfully ap- 
proached the priest and inquired if he spoke French. 
He answered in the affirmative. I then told him 
that I admired his form and his skill in baptizing 
children — that I was an ecclesiastic from America, 
and that I was not aware that the Church of Rome 
practised immersion. He said that immersion was 
the only mode of baptism at the beginning, and it 
continued till the Roman hierarchy in the third 
century [it was many centuries later] introduced 
sprinkling; but Milan continued the original prac- 
tice till that time." 

As Dr. A. P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster, Lon- 
don, declares : 

"With the two exceptions of the Cathedral of 
Milan and the sect of the Baptists, a few drops of 
water are now the Western substitute for the threefold 
plunge into the rushing rivei^s or the wide baptisteries 
of the Eastr ^ 

^ Stanley's History of the Eastern Church, p. 1 17. New York, 

1870. 



152 THE BAPTISM OF TH£ 

The Baptistery of St. John de Lateran, and 
AN Ancient Baptism annually Administered 
IN it. 

The Rev. A. J. Eowland, pastor of the Tenth 
Baptist Church, Philadelphia, has at our request 
kindly furnished us with the following account of 
the Lateran baptistery and pool : 

'' I visited the baptistery of St. John Lateran, in 
Rome, on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 24, 1876. The 
building is octagonal in form, and stands a little 
distance from the fine old church which gives it its 
name. One is struck immediately on approaching 
with the antiquity of its appearance, and is not sur- 
prised to learn from the guide that it dates back to 
the time of Constantine, and that in this very build- 
ing the first Christian emperor of Rome was bap- 
tized, A. D. 337. The building is about fifty feet in 
diameter. The pool of the baptistery is of green ba- 
salt, and it is about twenty feet long by fifteen wide, 
the form being that of an ellipse. There seemed to 
be a false wooden floor in the bottom, but the depth 
even with this was something over three feet I asked 
the ' cicerone ' who showed us the place, who seemed 
to belong to one of the lower orders of the clergy, 
the meaning of this large font, so unlike those in 
modern cliurches, and he replied that it*s size was 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 153 

due to the fact that anciently people were immersed. 
I ID quired if it was ever used for immersion now. 
' Yes/ he said ; ^ on Easier Eve Jews and Pagans who 
accept the faith of the Church are baptized, here in that 
way' This fact I subsequently found also in Bae- 
deker's celebrated guide-book. 

*' On the right and left of the baptistery building 
doors open into two small apartments, now known as 
oratorios or chapels ; on the ceiling of one of them is 
an old mosaic, dating back to the fifth century, repre- 
senting John the Baptist "perrforming the rite of im- 
mersion. It struck me that these two apartments 
may have been originally dressing-rooms for bap- 
tismal occasions. Between the font and the outer 
walls there is space enough, I think, for four or five 
hundred spectators to witness a baptism. On the 
day of my visit this space was occupied in part by a 
number of classes of boys who were taught by Rom- 
ish priests very much after the fashion of our Sunday- 
schools. 

" Altogether, the building proclaims in the most 
positive way the antiquity of the practice of immer- 
sion. It seems absurd to suppose that the ancient 
Church w^ould have gone to the trouble of erecting 
this large building for no other purpose than to im- 
merse its members, had not this been the primitive 
and prescribed mode. I left the building with my 



154 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

faith in baptism by immersion deeply confirmed and 
strengthened." 

The baptismal service in this church at Easter was 
in full exercise a thousand years ago ; and the mode 
was immersion and the time Easter/ The pope ad- 
ministered baptism in the font of St. John de Lat- 
eran, wearing " a pair of waxed drawers " — that is, 
waterproof drawers. 
^ Histwy of Baptism J by Kobins^ i, p. 106. Nashville, 1860. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 155 



RUSSIA. 

The Baptism of Vladimir the Great, Prince 

OF EUSSIA, AND OF THE PeOPLE OF KlEFF. 

Vladimir, the ruler of the Russians in a. d. 
988, was a fierce warrior and conqueror, and guilty 
of a licentiousness unsurpassed by sultans or Solo- 
mons. He was as heartless a despot and tyrant as 
ever trod on human rights and bleeding hearts. He 
was also a furious idolater, and would not scruple to 
offer human sacrifices to his abominable god. He 
made a new statue of Perune, his deity, with a silver 
head, which he placed near his palace. He waged 
war on the city of Kherson, the ruins of which still 
exist near Sevastopol, that he might compel the 
Greek emperors, its sovereigns, to give him their 
sister Anna in marriage, and through some exalt- 
ed ecclesiastic to confer Christian baptism upon 
him. He captured the city, and the fair princess 
became his w^ife, to the grief or deliverance of 
nearly a thousand women whom he forthwith dis- 
missed. 

Kelly, in his History of Riisda^ describes the 



156 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

baptisms following the capture of Kherson : " Vlad- 
imir/' says he, "listened to some catechetical lec- 
tures, received the rite of baptism and the name 
of Basil, and restored to his brothers-in-law the 
conquests he had recently made. 

"He had Perune tied to the tail of a horse on 
his return to Kieif, dragged to the Borysthenes, and 
all the way twelve stout soldiers, with great cudgels, 
beat the deified log, which was afterward thrown into 
the river. 

" At Kieff, one day, he issued a proclamation or- 
dering all the inhabitants to repair the next morn- 
ing to the banks of the river to be baptized^ which they 
joyfully obeyed,'^ ^ 

The Immersion at Kieff, according to Dean 

Stanley. 

" The whole people of Kieff, ^^ says he, " were im- 
mersed in the Dnieper, some sitting on the banks, 
some plunged in, others swimming, while the priests 
read the prayers. The spot was consecrated by the 
first Christian church, and Kieff* henceforward be- 
came the Canterbury of the Kussian empire." ^ 

^ Kelly's History of Russia, pp. 32, 33. Bohn, London, 
1854. 

^ Stanley's History of the Eastern Church, p. 409. New 
York, 1870. 



ages and the nations. 157 

Mouravieff's Account of the Baptisms after 
THE Capture of Kherson. 

Mouravieff in 1842 was chamberlain to the Em- 
peror of Russia, and '* under-procurator of the most 
holy governing synod," St. Petersburg, 1838. The 
Rev. R. W. Blackmore, an Episcopalian chaplain in 
Cronstadt, who translated Mouravieff 's work, says : 
** He gives a clear, succinct, and regular account of 
the events which marked the introduction and prog- 
ress of Christianity in his native country." ^ 

Mouravieff himself says : " On the arrival of the 
Princess Anna at Kherson, she induced Vladimir to 
hasten his baptism, for it was so ordered by the 
wisdom of God that the sight of the prince was at 
tliat time much affected by a complaint of the eyes ; 
but at the moment that the Bishop of Kherson laid 
his hands upon him, when he had risen up out of the 
bath of regeneration [baptism], Vladimir suddenly re- 
ceived not only spiritual illumination, but also the 
bodily sight of his eyes. 

*' Vladimir made a proclamation to the people, 
* That whoever, on the morrow, should not repair 
to the river, whether rich or poor, he should hold 
him for his enemy.' At the call of their respected 

^ Mouravieff's History of the Church of Bussia, Preface, p, 
10. 

14 



158 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

lord all the multitude of the citizens in troops, with 
their wives and children, flocked to the Dnieper , and 
ivithout any manner of opposition received holy bap- 
tism as a nation from the Greek bishops and priests " 
[who came with Vladimir from Kherson]. 

" Nestor," says Mouravieff, " draws a touching 
picture of this baptism of a whole people at 
once. Some stood in the water up to their necks, 
others up to their breasts^ holding their young chil- 
dren in their arms; the priests read the prayers 
from the shore, naming at once whole companies 
by the same name. He who was the means of 
thus bringing them to salvation, filled with a 
transport of joy at the aflfecting sight, cried out 
to the Lord, offering and commending into his 
hands himself and his people : ' O great God, who 
hast made heaven and earth, look down upon these 
thy new people. Grant them, O Lord, to know 
thee, the true God, as thou hast been made known 
to Christian lands, and confirm in them a true 
and unfailing faith ; and assist me, O Lord, against 
my enemy that opposes me, that, trusting in thee 
and in thy powder, I may overcome all his wiles.' " ^ 

This baptism of a whole city in the river Dnieper 
was the grand commencement of the triumph of 

* Mouravieff's History of the Church of Russia, pp. 13, 15. 
Oxford, 1842. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 159 

Christianity throughout Russia. Mauy thousands 
were immersed in the Dnieper at this time, and im- 
mersion has been ever since, and is to-day, the only 
baptism of the Russians. There is a note in Mou- 
raviefF on this great baptism in the Dnieper, which 
states : " The archdeacon who accompanied Macarius, 
Patriarch of Jerusalem, into Antioch in the time 
of Nikon gives a very similar description of the bap- 
tisrtn of a whole tribe at once, of which he himself 
and the patriarch were witnesses."^ 

The Synod of Vladimir in Russia, and Trine 
Immersion. 
In A. D. 1274, Cyril, the Metropolitan of Kieff, 
called a synod at Vladimir to restore the discipline 
of the Church, and among other regulations ^'it 
forbade the practice of using affusion instead of 
Irine immersion in holy baptism, which was probably 
creeping into our churches through Galich from the 
West."^ This decree will be found in Mouravieff. 

A Baptism in the Russian Church, witnessed 
BY Kohl, a German Traveller, about 
Thirty Years Since. 
"As the child, so long as it is unchristened, is a 

little heathen, and as such a subject of the Evil 

^ Mouravieff's History of the Church of Russia, p. 354. Ox- 
ford, 1842. 2 75/^^ p^ 48^ 



160 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

Spirit, the priest's first address to it is a demand 
that it will renounce him. As the child does not 
answer, the godfathers do so for him, and then the 
priest spits behind him, and all those present follow 
his example : they spit at the retreating devil ! 
This is the first act of the baptism. As an inter- 
lude, the priest oflTers up a prayer, and if he has 
brought singers with him, they sing. During this 
time the child is in a neutral condition, and it is 
in fact hard to say to which kingdom his soul 
belongs. The evil spirits have left him, but the 
good have not yet taken possession. Before the 
immersion the whole party, preceded by the priest 
and the godfathers, make a solemn procession around 
the font. This is repeated three times — in the name 
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Then 
the priest consecrates the water and puts a metal 
cross in it, and afterward immerses the child three 
times, again in the three sacred names, and lastly 
pronounces the baptismal names bestowed on him. 
After the third immersion the child is a Christian, 
as the visible sign of which the priest suspends a 
metal cross to the neck by a black string, and this 
is kept on the breast as an amulet through life. 
It is then dressed, the procession around the font 
repeated, the godfather carrying the child instead 
of the godmother. Burning tapers are carried be- 



AGES a:sd the nation. s. IGl 

fore them, whose flame is always supposed to sym- 
bolize the Holy Ghost in the Russian Church ; they 
must not begin to flame, therefore, till the child is 
supposed to be filled with that Spirit. The child 
is then anointed on the body, eyes, ears, mouth, 
hands, and feet. Lastly, from four places on its 
little head the priest cuts crosswise a piece of its 
silky hair. This is rolled up sometimes with a 
little wax into a ball and thrown into the font.^' ^ 

The Great Dissenting Community of Sta- 
ROVERS, OR Old Believers, in Russia, prac- 
tise Immersion. 

This denomination numbers about eight millions, 
who have an almost idolatrous regard for ancient 
national customs and religious observances and 
peculiarities. They regard the smoking of tobacco 
as a sin of such unusual magnitude that the drink- 
ing of brandy in comparison is a trivial oflence. 
Their converts from the Established Church are 
solemnly rebaptized. Dean Stanley describes one 
of their villages which lies ^' beyond the uttermost 
barrier of Moscow," called Preobajensk, or the 
Transfiguration, and according to him its people 
are industrious, commercial, and in many cases 
wealthy. "J. straggling lake,^^ he says, " extends 

1 Eussia, by J. G. Kohl, pp. 251, 252. London, 1842. 
14^ L 



162 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

itself right and left into the village, m which the 
Starovers baptize those who come over to them from 
the Established Church."^ 

Converts of Adult Years are Immersed in 
THE Russian Church. 

In the February number of Harper^s Magazine 
for 1869 there is a woodcut representing an im- 
mersion, as above. (Plate IV.) 

The traveller who witnessed it says: "About 
fifty versts from Nijne Novgorod the population 
of a large village was gathered in Sunday dress 
upon the ice. A baptism was in progress, and as 
we drove past the assemblage I caught a glimpse 
of a man plunging through a freshly -cut hole. Half 
a minute later he emerged from the crowd and ran 
toward the nearest house, the water dripping from 
his garments and hair."^ The plate from which 
our picture is taken was furnished to us by the 
proprietors of Harper'' s Magazine, 

' Stanley's History of the Eastern Church, pp. 509, 511, 516, 
New York, 1870. 

* Harper's Magazine^ vol. 38, p. 300. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 163 



TUKKEY AND GEEECE. 

THE GKEEK CHUKCH. 

" The Constitutions and Canons of the Hol^ 

Apostles." 

This work is divided into eight books, the last 
one of which ends with the eighty-five Canons. 

The entire work is full of Scripture quotations, 
and while it occasionally teaches error it is rich in 
precious truths. It is of great antiquity; nearly 
all its latest parts come but a short way into the 
fourth century, and its earliest portions stretch up 
almost to the first. The whole work treats of doc- 
trines, the rights and duties of the clergy, and the 
principles that should govern all Christians. 

In canon twenty-two ^ it condemns all deeds like 
the one known as "the heroic act of Origen." This 
canon must have been adopted when the excite- 
ment against the fanaticism of Origen was at its 
height. 

Canon six: "Let not a bishop, presbyter, or 

^ Constitutions and Canons of the Holy Apostles, New York, 
1848. 



164 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

deacon cast off his own wife under pretence of 
piety ; but if he cast her off, let him be suspended. 
If he continue to do it let him be deposed." ^ At 
the Council of Nice, A. d. 325, the spirit of celi- 
bacy had so intensified and extended itself that only 
Paphnutius, an Egyptian bishop brought up in a 
community of monks and held in the greatest rev- 
erence, saved the clergy from the disruption of 
their families. 

The Constitutions expressly declare that a life of 
" virginity [in monks or nuns] is not commanded by 
the Lord ; the practice is a voluntary one, and must 
not be used to the reproach of marriage." ^ This 
decree is as old as the end of the second century. 

It gives advice repeatedly to Christians about the 
proper course to pursue in persecutions, showing that 
it w^as written before Constantino the Great crushed 
his Pagan and persecuting enemies. Whatever these 
" Constitutions and Canons " lack of the inspired au- 
thority claimed for them, and for ages freely accord- 
ed to them by multitudes, no competent scholar ever 
doubted the correctness of the account which they 
give of the government, discipline, and practices of 
the churches. 

^ Constitutions and Canons of the Holy Apos:ieSj lib. i. cap. 
11. New York, 1848. 
' Jbid.y lib. viii. Const. 24. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 165 

The Baptism of the Constitutions and Canons. 

"He who is to be initiated into Chrisfs death 
ought first to fast, and then be baptized, for it is not 
reasonable that he who has been buried with Christ 
and is risen again with him should appear dejected 
at his very resurrection." ^ 

"Thou, therefore, O bishop, according to that 
type, shalt anoint the head of those that are to be 
baptized, whether they be men or women, with the 
holy oil, for a type of the spiritual baptism. Then, 
either thou, O bishop, or a presbyter under thee, 
shall pronounce over them the sacred name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and 
shall dip them in the water. And let a deacon receive 
the man, and a deaconess the woman, that so the 
conferring of this invaluable seal may be done with 
a becoming decency." ^ 

" If any bishop or presbyter shall not perform three 
immersions of one mystery, hit shall immerse once in 
baptism, which is given into the death of the Lord, let 
him be deposed.'^ ^ This is the version of this section 

^ Constitutions and Canons of the Holy Apostles, lib. viii. 
Const. 22. New York, 1848. 

2 Ibid., lib. iii. Const. 16. 

3 'Ei rig eiricKOTTog tj TrpeGpvrepoc, fifj rpia paTrTLC/iara fiidg 
uvrjoEQ intTeXicTj, a^/l* ev iSaTrriajua elg tov davaruv tov Kvptov, 
KadaipeLudo), Harduin Cone. Collec., vol. xii. p. 22. Paris, 1715. 



166 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

of the celebrated fiftieth canon given by Dionysius 
Exiguiis ; ^ and it was unquestionably the understood 
meaning of the canon about trine immersion from the 
beginning. The Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum renders 
rpia po.T.Tt(7iiaTa^ three immersions,^ And Strabo, in 
the ninth century, says : " Some want trine immer- 
sion, because of its resemblance to the three days' 
burial (of Christ), and because ' The Apostolic Canons 
and the custom, of the Romans required itJ " ^ " The 
Constitutions and Canons of the Holy Apostles " en- 
joyed the highest authority for many centuries in 
the Church, and they demand trine immersion. 

Gregory of Nyssa and Immersion. 
Gregory Nyssen was one of the most prominent 
and popular bishops of the Eastern Church. He 
wielded a powerful influence in the councils of 
bishops and in the public affairs of the Eastern 
Empire. He occupied a conspicuous place in the 
General Council of Constantinople, a. d. 382, and 
by its appointment delivered before the council the 

^ Trinam mersionem .... semel mergat in baptismate. 
Codex Canon. Eccles., Patrol. Lat., vol. 67, p. 148. Migne. 
Parisiis. 

^ Si quis episcopus, aut presbyter, non tres mersiones fece- 
rit, sed unam mersionem. Bihlio. Vet. Patrum^ Gallan, torn 
ill. 244. Venet., 1767. 

* See Wilafrid Straho. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS 167 

funeral oration of Meletius, Patriarch of Antioch. 
In A. D. 385 he preached in Constantinople the fu- 
neral discourse of the Empress Placilla. Speaking 
of baptism, he says : 

*' Coming to the water, we hide ourselves in it^ as the 
Saviour hid himself in the earth." ^ With him bap- 
tism concealed or covered the baptized person with 
water. 

Chrysostom and Immersion. 

Chrysostom, the persecuted patriarch, eloquent 
preacher, and earnest Christian, had a widespread 
popularity, and a popularity that has journeyed 
down the ages for fifteen centuries, and is never 
likely to sufier any abatement. In his day many 
of the clergy hated him, and for some reason the 
Empress Eudoxia, who took special charge of Ar- 
cadius, her unresisting husband, and of his sceptre, 
regarded Chrysostom with bitter dislike. Once, 
through her influence, he was sent into exile, but 
the threatenings of the people and the persuasive 
terrors of an alarming earthquake made it neces- 
sary to recall him to his church. A silver statue 
of the empress, standing upon a column of por- 

1 To v(^(jp kpxojuevoi eKelvCf) savTovg kyKpvTTTOjUEv. Greg. NyS' 
sen, torn, iii., De Bap. Christ.^ vol. xlvi., p. 585 ; PatroL 
Grdeca. Migne. Parisiis, 1858. 



1G8 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

pliyry, had been placed only the half breadth of 
the street from the eliureh of St. Sophia. To this 
statue such honors were paid, and around it siieh 
shouting, confusion, and wickedness prevailed, as 
appeared to Chrysostom to be a disgrace to the 
temple of Jehovah. In a moment oi excitement 
lie denounced the statue and the scenes that were 
constantly occurring around it. The empress was 
indignant, and John had to leave the capital of 
the Eastern Ctvsars again. Chrysostom is the 
grand representative of the Greek Church of the 
fourth century. Writing of baptism, he says : 

" jpor we si)d'i)uj our heads i)i the water, as if i)i 
some grave, the old man is buried; and the whole 
ma)}, having sujik entireh/ dow)i, is concealed. Then, 
ice emergijig, the )iew maii arises again. For as it 
is easy for us to he immersed and to emerge, so it is 
easy for God to bury the old man and bring to liglit 
the new. 27^/^^ /.n^ do)ie three times.^' ^ 

The ancient deacons led the nutn to be baptized 
into the fountain up to the neck in the water ; and 

^ KadaTTef} ydf) er rin ratjx^^ 7<^ inViTt Kara ih'Oi'nov t}uiji' rat; 
seda/iCiCy 6 7Ta2aibc ai'OpcjTog ddTTTerat^ Kal Kiivaih'i; kotu ay)J'T7^'- 
rai uAoc KoBaTza^. Ezra dvavevdvruv /)/«I)r, 6 naivoc dveim TrdXiv. 
'ilcTTTf p yd/) evKO?nn' tjutv jSaiTTioaGdat kq} dvavevaai. Ovru)^ evKoh)v 
Tu' 6t\j Oaij'ai roi' civOpiozov rov iraAaidi' kiu avaih'i^iK nw viov. 
Toirov i^i' rovTo ^iirrai. Chrvsos. on John iii. 5, vol, viii. p. 
IGS. Paribiis, 1S36. 



AGES AND TlIK NATIONS. 169 

if tho candidate was a woman, the deaconesses 
placed her in the same situation; and the act of 
baptism atler this consisted simply in sinking the 
head of the person in the water three times in the 
name of the Holy Trinity; and in this way, ac- 
cording to Chrysostom, ''the whole man, having 
{^unl' eniirelij down, was co)iceaIed.'' 

Philostorgius and Immersion. 

Philostorgius was born in Cappadocia about A. D. 
364. He was educated in Constantinople, and it is 
not known whether he was a lawyer or a religious 
teacher. He wrote an ecclesiastical history, from the 
origin of Arianism to A. d. 425, which is lost. 

Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople in the latter 
part of the ninth century, made an abridgment of 
the work of Philostorgius, which still remains; and 
in the abrid^red history Philostoro-ius says: 

** The Eunomians baptized not ivith trine immer- 
b'ion, but with one immersion, baptizing, as they said, 
into the Lord's death." ' 

The word used by Photius, and most probably by 
Philostorgius, means sinking or causing to sink. 

From the way in which Philostorgius expresses it, 

1 Karath'cic, Philostorg Ecde^ Hist. Epito., lib. x. cap. 4, 
p. 523. Piirisiis, 1673. 
15 



170 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

it is clear that all but the Eunomians had trine im- 
mersion in baptism in the fourth century. 

A Baptism in Athens according to the Rites 
OF the Greek Church. 

Bayard Taylor, the well-known traveller, while 
in Athens, witnessed in a private house the immer- 
sion of a child. He says : 

^' I neglected no opportunity of witnessing the 
ceremonials of the Greek Church. In the East, the 
sacraments of the Church have still their ancient 
significance. The people have made little or no 
spiritual progress in a thousand years, and many 
forms which elsewhere are retained by the force of 
habit — their original meaning having long since been 
lost sight of — are still imbued with vital principle. 

" The parents received us at the door. Every- 
thing was in readiness for the ceremony. The 
priest — a tall, vigorous Macedonian, a married man 
— and the deacon — a very handsome young fellow, 
with a dark olive complexion and large languish- 
ing eyes — now prepared themselves by putting long 
embroidered collars over their gowns. They then 
made an altar of the chest of drawers, by placing 
upon it a picture of the Virgin, with lighted tapers 
on either side. Then a small table was brought 
into the centre of the room as a pedestal for a tall 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 171 

tri-fbrked wax candle, representing the Trinity. A 
large brazen urn, the baptismal font, was next 
carried in ; the priest's son, a boy of twelve, put 
coals and incense into the censer, and the ceremony 
began. The godfather, who was a venerable old 
gentleman, took his station in front of the font. 
Beside him stood the nurse holding the babe, a 
lively boy of six weeks old. Neither of the parents 
is allowed to be present during the ceremony. 

"After some preliminary chants and crossings, 
in the latter of which the whole company joined, 
the priest made the sign of the cross three times 
over the infant, blowing in its face each time. The 
object of this was to exorcise and banish from its 
body the evil spirits which are supposed to be in 
possession of it up to the moment of baptism. The 
godfather then took it in his arms, and the Nicene 
Creed was thrice repeated — once by the deacon, once 
by the priest's son, and once by the godfather. A 
short liturgy followed, after which the latter pro- 
nounced the child's name — ^Apostolos^ — which he 
had himself chosen. It is very important that the 
name should be mentioned to no one, not even to 
the parents, until the moment of baptism ; it must 
then be spoken for the first time. 

" The position of godfather in Greece carries with 
it a great responsibility. In the two Protestant 



]72 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

sects which still retain this beautiful custom it is 
hardly more than a form, complimentary to the 
person who receives the office, but no longer carry- 
ing with it any real obligation. Among the Greeks, 
however, it is a relation to which belong legally 
acknowledged rights and duties, still further pro- 
tected by all the sanction which the Church can 
confer. The godfather has not only the privilege 
of paying all the baptismal expenses and present- 
ing the accustomed mug and spoon, but he stands 
thenceforth in a spiritual relationship to the family 
which has all the force of a connection by blood. 
For instance, he is not allowed to marry into the 
family within the limits of consanguinity prohibited 
by the Church, which extend as far as the ninth 
degree, whatever that may be. He also watches 
over the child with paternal care, and in certain 
cases his authority transcends even that of the pa- 
rents. The priest and deacon put on embroidered 
stoles, rather the worse for wear, and the former 
rolled up his sleeves. Basins of hot and cold water 
w^ere poured into the font, and stirred together till 
a proper temperature was obtained. The water 
was then consecrated by holding a Bible over it, 
blowing upon it to expel the demons, dividing it 
with the hand in the form of a cross nine times-— 
three apiece for each person of the Trinity — and 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 173 

various other mystical ceremonies accompanied with 
nasal chanting. The censer, now puffing a thick 
cloud of incense, was swung toward the Virgin, then 
toward us, and then the other guests in succession, 
each one acknowledging the compliment by an in- 
clination of the head. 

"A bottle of oil was next produced, and under- 
went the same process of consecration as the water. 
The priest first poured some of it three times into 
the font in the form of a cross, and then filled the 
godfather's hollow hand, which was extended to re- 
ceive it. The infant, having been meanwhile laid 
upon the floor and stripped, was taken up like a 
poor, unconscious, wriggling worm as it was, and 
anointed by the priest upon the forehead, breast, 
elbows, knees, palms of the hands, and soles of the 
feet. Each lubrication was accompanied by an ap- 
propriate blessing, until every important part of the 
body had been redeemed from the evil powers. The 
godfather then used the child as a towel, wiping his 
oily hands upon it, after which the priest placed it ^ 
in the font. 

" The little fellow had been yelling lustily up to 

this time, but the bath soothed and quieted him. 

With one hand the priest poured water plentifully on 

his head, then lifted him out and dipped him a second 

^ None of the italics after this are Bayard Taylor^s. 
15* 



174 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

time ; but instead of affusion, it was this time complete 
immersion. Placing his hand over the child's mouth 
and nose, he plunged it completely under three times 
in succession. 

" The Greek Christians skilfully avoid the vexed 
question of * sprinkling or immersion/ on which so 
much breath has been vainly spent, by combining 
both methods. If a child three times sprinkled and 
three times dipped is not sufficiently baptized, the 
ordinance had better be set aside. 

" The screaming and half-strangled babe was laid 
on a warm cloth ; and while the nurse dried his body 
the priest cut four bits of hair from the top of his 
head — in the form of a cross, of course — and threw 
them into the font. A gaudy dress of blue and 
white, with a lace cap, the godfather's gift, was then 
produced, and the priest proceeded to clothe the 
child. It was an act of great solemnity, in wdiich 
each article assumed a spiritual significance. Thus : 
^ I endow thee with the coat of righteousness,' and on 
went the coat ; ^ I crown thee with the cap of grace,' 
and he put it on ; . . . . " ^ 

^ Travels in Greece and Russia by Bayard Taylor, pp. 54- 
59, New York, 1859. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 175 



** Office of Holy Baptism" of the Greek 
Church, by A. N. Arnold, D. D., Chicago. 

*'i2. The priest enters, and changing his priestly white robe and 
sleeveSf and touching all the candles, having taken the censer, 
he goes to the font and incenses it with a circular motion; 
and having laid aside the censer, tvorships. Then the deacon 



' Bless, O Lord.' 

^^H. Tfien the priest, with a loud voice : 
* Blessed be the kingdom of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and always, and 
world without end. Amen.' 

''B. The deacon: 

* In peace let us beseech the Lord.' 

"E. The choir: 

' Lord, have mercy ! In behalf of the peace that is 

from above and salvation ; in behalf of the peace of 

the whole world ; in behalf of this Holy Family and 

of those in the faith ; in behalf of the sanctification 

of this water, by the power, and the energy, and the 

impartation of the Holy Spirit, let us beseech the 

Lord.' 

(Then follow twelve other short prayers, occupy- 
ing a page of the book, all ending as above : then 
the following :) 

* Help, save, have mercy, and keep us ; 



J 76 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

Through the all-holy, undefiled, hyper-blessed, our 
glorious Lady, the Mother of God/ 

"i?. And while the deacon is saying these things, the priest says 
by himself the following prayer secretly. 

(Here follows the prayer, occupying nearly a page.) 

"jR. It is necessary to understand that he does not speak aloud, 
but even the ^ amen ' he says to himself. Afterward he says 
this prayer aloud, 

(Here follows a prayer, occupying a whole page, 
and ending as follows, after a reference to Christ's 
sanctifying the waters of the Jordan by his baptism :) 

* Be thou present, therefore, O merciful King, now 
also by the impartation of thy Holy Spirit, and 
sanctify this water/ 

^'R. {Repeat three times.) 

* And give to it the grace of redemption, the bless- 
ing of the Jordan. Make it a fountain of incor- 
ruption, a gift of sanctification, a deliverance from 
sin, a medicine against diseases, destructive to de- 
mons, inaccessible to hostile powers, filled with an- 
gelic strength. Let those who plot against thy 
creature flee from it; because, O Lord, I have in- 
voked thy name, which is wonderful and glorious, 
and terrible to the adversaries.' 

"i2. Then he makes the sign of the cross and breathes upon the 
water three times, and prays, saying : 



AGES A^D THE NATIONS. 177 

' Let all the hostile powers be shattered under the 
sign of the venerable cross (three times). Let all 
the aerial and invisible idols depart, and let there 
not hide in this water any dark demon ; neither let 
there descend upon the baptized, we beseech thee, 
any wicked spirit, bringing darkness of thoughts 
and perturbation of mind. But do thou, O Lord 
of all, make this water a w^ater of redemption, a 
water of sanctification, a purification of flesh and 
spirit, a release from bonds, a remission of trans- 
gressions, an enlightenment of souls, a laver of re- 
generation, a renewal of spirit, a grace of adoption, 
a garment of incorruption, a fountain of life. For 
thou, O Lord, hast said, ** Wash you, make you 
clean, put away the wickedness of your souls." 
Thou hast given to us the regeneration from above, 
through water and Spirit. Manifest thyself, O 
Lord, in this, and grant that the one baptized in 
it may be transformed, so as to put off* the old 
man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful 
lusts, and may put on the new man, which is re- 
newed after the image of Him that created him, 
in order that, being planted together in the like- 
ness of his death by baptism, he may become a 
partaker also of his resurrection, and preserving 
the gift of the Holy Spirit and increasing the 

deposit of grace, may receive the prize of the 

M 



178 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

heavenly calling, and be numbered with the first- 
born who are registered in heaven, in thee, our 
God and Lord Jesus Christ. For to thee belong 
glory, power, honor, and worship, together with 
thine eternal Father, and thy holy and good and 
life-giving Spirit, now and always, and world with- 
out end. Amen. 

* Peace be with all. Bow your heads to the 
Lord.' 

'^jR. And he breathes upon the vessel of oil three times j and 
mokes the sign of the cross three times upon the oil, which 
is held by the deacon; and when the deacon says, ^Let us 
beseech the Lord^^ the priest shall say the following prayer : 

*0 Lord God of our fathers, who didst send to 
those who were in Noah's ark a dove, having a 
twig of olive in its mouth, a symbol of reconcilia- 
tion and of salvation from the deluge, and didst 
foreshadow by these things the mystery of grace, 
and didst furnish the fruit of the olive tree for 
the fulfilment of thy holy mysteries, and by this 
didst fill with the Holy Spirit those under the law, 
and dost perfect those under grace, do thou bless 
also this oil, by the power and energy and impart- 
ation of thy Holy Spirit, so that it may become an 
ointment of incorruption, a weapon of righteous- 
ness, a renewing of soul and body, an antidote of 
every diabolical influence, a deliverance from all 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 179 

evils to those anointed in faith, and partaking of 
it to thy glory, and of thy only-begotten Son, and 
of thy all-holy and good and life-giving Spirit, 
now and always, and world without end/ 

"i2. The choir, 'AmenJ The deacon, 'Let us give attention^ 
^'R. The priest, singing the hallelujah three times with the people, 
makes the sign of the cross three times with the oil on the 
water. Then he says aloud, 

* Blessed be God, who enlightens and sanctifies 
every man coming into the world, now^ and always, 
and world without end.' 

^^B, The choir, ^Amen,^ 
"i2. And the one to he baptized is brought forward. And the 
priest takes of the oil, and makes the sign of the cross upon 
the forehead and the breast and the hack, saying, 

' The servant of the Lord [name] is anointed with 
the oil of gladness, in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and always, 
and world without end. Amen.' 

*'i^. And he makes the sign of the cross upon his breast and hit 

hack. 
''JR. (Making it) upon his breast, he says: 

* For healing of soul and body.' 

"i2. (Making it) upon his ears, he says: 

* For the hearing of faith.' 

"i2. (Making it) upon his feet, he says: 

* That his steps may go in thy ways/ 



180 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

"J2. {Making it) upon his hands, he says: 
* Thy hands have made me and fashioned me.* 

"i2. And when the whole body has been anointed, the 'priest bap- 
tizes him, holding him in an erect posture, and with his face 
to the east, and saying, 

* The servant of the Lord [name] is baptized in 
the name of the Father, amen, and of the Son, 
amen, and of the Holy Spirit, amen, now and al- 
ways, and world without end. Amen.' 

"i2. At each invocation sinking him and raising him, 

"i2. And after the baptism the priest washes his hands, 

"i2. Singing with the people, 

* Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, 
and whose sins are covered.' 

"i2. And the rest of the psalm three times. 
" J2. And putting on him the vestments, he says : 

* The servant of God [name] is clothed with the 
robe of righteousness, in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and 
always, and world without end. Amen.' 

"i2. And a short hym,n [^troparionl is sung, 
' Supply to me a shining robe, O merciful Christ, 

our God, who clothest thyself with light as with a 

garment.' 

*^R. And after he is clothed the priest prays, saying this prayer : 
*Let us beseech the Lord. Blessed art thou, O 

Lord God Almighty, the Fountain of blessings, the 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 181 

Sun of righteousness, who sheddest the light of sal- 
vation upon those in darkness, by the appearance 
of thy only-begotten Son and our God, and who 
liast given to us, who are unworthy, the blessed puri- 
fication in the holy water and the divine sanctifica- 
tion in the life-giving anointing, and w^ho hast now 
been pleased to regenerate thy servant, the one 
newly enlightened by water and Spirit, and hast 
given to him the remission of all sins, voluntary 
and involuntary. Do thou, O most royal and 
merciful Lord, grant to him also the seal of the 
gift of thy holy, almighty, and adorable Spirit, and 
the participation of the holy body and the vener- 
able blood of thy Christ. Keep him in thy sancti- 
fication, confirm him in the orthodox faith, deliver 
him from the wicked one, and from all his devices, 
and keep his soul in thy saving fear, in purity and 
righteousness, in order that, pleasing thee in every 
work and word, he may become a son and heir of 
thy heavenly kingdom.' 

"i2. Aloud. 
' For thou art our God, a God of mercy and sal- 
vation, and to thee we ascribe glory, to the Father, 
and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and 
always, and world without end. Amen.' 

^'E. And after the prayer he anoints the baptized with the holy 
ointment, making the sign of the cross upon his forehead, 
16 



182 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

and his eyes, and his nostrils , and his mouth , and both his 
ears, and his breast, and his hands, and his feet, saying : 

* The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen/ 

"iv. l^hen the priest, with the sponsor and the child, make the 
form of a circle, and we sing : 

* As many of you as were baptized into Christ did 
put on Christ. Hallelujah !' 

"i2. This is done three times; then the text, 
'The Lord is my Light and my Saviour. 
The Lord is the Defender of my life.' 

"i2. The Epistle. 

Romans vi. 3-11. 

*'i^. Gospel from Matthew xxviii. 16-20. 

^'R. Then the bidding prayer and dismission. 

"H. After seven days the child is again h^ought to the (hurch 
for the abhition [anolovoLg). After three short prayers, 

"i2. The priest loosens the child's girdle and garment, and unit- 
ing the ends of them, wets them with clean water and .sprinkles 
[paivei) the child, saying: 

' Thou hast been justified, thou hast been enlight- 
ened/ etc. 

"JK. And taking a new sponge with water, he wipes the child^s 
face, and head, and breast, saying: 

^ Thou hast been baptized, thou hast been enlight- 
ened, thou hast been anointed, thou hast been sanc- 
tified, thou hast been washed in the name of the 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 183 

Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 
now and ever, and world without end. Amen/ ^ 

" The lines marked R. in the margin are the rub- 
rics, and are printed in red letters in the book. 

" The confirmation service is united with the bap- 
tismal. The anointing, or chrism, mentioned is the 
Greek rite of confirmation. 

''The short service of ablution is appended, be- 
cause of the sprinkling mentioned in it, which it is 
supposed may have been mistaken for baptism by 
some of those not very well informed travellers who 
have testified so positively that they have seen bap- 
tism performed by sprinkling in the Greek Church." 

Dr. Arnold and Immersions in Greece. 

Dr. Arnold — until recently a professor in the 
Baptist Theological Seminary of Chicago — is one 
of the most scholarly men in or out of the Baptist 
denomination in the United States. He was for 
several years a missionary in Greece, with the most 
favorable opportunities for becoming familiar with 
the religious observances of the Greeks. Writing of 
modern baptism among them, he says : 

'' The writer has repeatedly seen baptism admin- 
istered according to the Greek ritual, and in every 
instance it has been a triple immersion. If, as may 
^ Translated from the EvxoAoyeov^ pp. 137-147. 



184 THE BAPTISM OF TPIE 

sometimes happen, any little portion oj the body is not 
completely submerged when the child is placed naked 
in the font, the priest, by a movement of his hand, 
sends a wave over it.^'^ 

The Greek Church and Immersion. 

Dean Stanley, an eminent Episcopalian, makes 
the following statement : 

" There can be no question that the original form 
of baptism — the very meaning of the word — was com- 
plete immersion in the deep baptismal waters, and 
that for at least four centuries any other form was 
either unknown or regarded, unless in the case of 
dangerous illness, as an exceptional, almost a mon- 
strous, case. To this form the Eastern Church still 
rigidly adheres, and the most illustrious and vener- 
able portion of it — that of the Byzantine Empire — 
absolutely repudiates and ignores any other mode of 
administration as essentially invalid,^^ ^ 

" The validity of the baptisms [sprinklings] of the 
Western Church is to this day denied by the Church 
of Constantinople/' ^ 

Dean Stanley might have said that twelve cen- 
turies instead of four was the period during which 
immersion was the baptism of Christendom. 

1 The Baptist Quarterly, vol. iv. 1870, p. 83. 
^ Stanley's History of the Eastern Church, p. 117. New 
York, 1870. ^ /^^^^ p 4gQ^ 



AGRS AND THE NATIONS. 185 



SERVI A. 

A Servian Baptism in 1876. 

Milan, Prince of Servia, through the war which 
his principality lately w^aged with Turkey and the 
conflict of 1877 between Russia and the Ottoman 
Porte, has become well known to the reading world. 
In 1876 a respectable English^ paper gave the fol- 
lowing account of the baptism of his child : 

" The infant son of Prince Milan was baptized at 
the palace, according to the rites of the Greek 
Church. He received the name of Milosh. Consul 
Kartzoff* represented the Emperor of Russia as spon- 
sor. There was no godmother. The service is a 
long one. The infant is stripped naked and com- 
pletely immersed in the font. A collect w^as sung for 
the prince, the princess, and the Emperor of Russia. 
With the exception of M. KartzofF, all the foreign 
consuls were in plain clothes. In the evening there 
was a display of fireworks, but no illumination." 

^ Dealj Walnier, Dover, and Kentish Telegraph, Oct. 28, 1876. 
16* 



186 THE BAPTISM OF THE 



TUEKEY, PEESIA, AND THE EAST. 

A Miraculous Baptism, a. d. 1299. 

Matthew of Westminster, in his Flowers of 
History, written in the early part of the fourteenth 
century, tells a very curious Eastern story. He 
says : 

" Paganus, brother of the great Cassanus, King of 
the Tartars, loved the daughter of the King of Ar- 
menia, who was a Christian ; accordingly, he begged 
the father that the girl might be given to him in 
marriage ; but the King of Armenia would not grant 
his request unless he laid aside the errors of heathen- 
ism and became a Christian. . . . His daughter, wish- 
ing to spare the people, voluntarily consented [to the 
marriage]. Afterward, when they had a child born 
of the male sex, he was found to be hairy and shaggy 
like a bear. And when he was brought to his father, 
he said that he was not his, and immediately ordered 
him to be burned in the fire. But his mother resist- 
ed, and ordered him to be baptized; and immediately, 
as soon as he had been thrice immersed ^ in the sacred 
^ Flowers of History, vol ii p. 531. London, 1853. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 187 

font all the hairiness fell from the child, and he ap- 
peared smooth and the most beautiful of infants.'* 

A Portion of the Nestorian Baptismal Ser- 
vice NOW in Use. 

" The deacons shall bring the children into the 
baptistery, their earrings, rings, and bracelets having 
been taken off, and they shall inquire the names to 
be given to the children, and shall communicate the 
same to the priest. The deacons shall then bind up 
their loins, and place their stoles under the vessel 
containing the oil. And every child who is admitted 
shall be provided with a napkin to be wrapped in 
after baptism, which shall be carried by the deacon 
on his shoulder. . . . Then those present shall care- 
fully and properly anoint all over the person of him 
whom the priest anointed ; and they shall not leave 
any part of him unanointed. Then they shall take 
him to the priest standing by the font, who shall j^/ace 
him therein, with his face to the east ; and he shall 
dip him therein three times, saying at the first time, 
* A. B., be thou baptized in the name of the Father/ 
i?. ^ Amen.' The second time : * In the name of the 
Son.' i?. ' Amen.' And at the third time : * In the 
name of the Holy Ghost.' B. ' Amen.' In dipping 
him he shall dip him up to the neck, and then put his 
hand upon him, so that his head may be submerged. 



188 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

Then the priest shall take him out of the font and 
give him to the deacon, who shall wrap him up in 
a white napkin and commit him to his godfathers. 
Then his clean clothes shall be put on, but his head 
must be left bare until the priest shall bind on his 
head-dress after the last signing."^ 

The Armenians and Immersion. 

The Rev. H. G. O. Dwight — a Congregational 
missionary in Turkey of great worth and of ex- 
tensive usefulness — in his work called Christianity 
in Turkey, published in 1854, writes: 

" The whole number of Armenians now in the 
world is estimated at not far from three millions. 
More than half of these — perhaps two-thirds —are 
inhabitants of Turkey. Large numbers are found 
in Russia, especially in the Georgian provinces, and 
very many also in Persia. They live in various 
parts of India, and some are found in Burmah and 
China. Wherever they go they are marked for 
their enterprise, ability, and intelligence, and it is 
acknowledged on all hands that they possess the 
elements of a superior character. In Turkey the 
principal merchants are Armenians, and nearly all 
the great bankers of the government ; and whatever 

* The Nestorians and their Rituah, by Badger, Episcopalian, 
vol. ii. pp. 207, 208. London, 1852. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 189 

arts there are that require peculiar ingeuuity aud 
skill, they are almost sure to be in the hands of 
Armenians. They are the Anglo-Saxons of the 
East."^ 

Giving an account of their religious rites, Dwight 
states that 

'^Baptism is performed by triple immersion^ also 
by pouring water afterward three times upon the 
head."^ 

The triple pouring after baptism has been per- 
formed is a custom in the Greek Church, as will 
be seen by looking at the closing portion of Dr. 
Arnold's translation of The Office of Holy Baptism 
of that Church. It takes place seven days after 
the baptism, and is called the "ablution." 

The baptism of the Armenians is a "triple im- 
mersion," no matter what additions have been made 
to it. 

^ Christianity in Turkey^ pp. 18, 14. London, 1854. 
' Ibid., p. 11. 



J9() THE BAPlT^^I OF J H K 



PALESTINE. 

Jewish Proselyte Baptism. 

De. John Lightfoot, a member of the West- 
minster Assembly of Divines that framed the Con- 
fession of Faith of our Ameriean Presbyterian 
brethren, a Hebrew sehohu* of unusual research, 
represents the baptism of proselytes as ages more 
ancient than Christ's day, and he gives the follow- 
ing account of the method of performing it : 

" They do not baptize a proselyte by night, nor 
on the Sabbath, nor on a holy day. It is required 
that three men who are scholars oi' the wise men 
be present at the baptism of a proselyte, who may 
take care that the business be rightly performed, 
and may briefly instruct the catechumen [candidate]. 

"As soon as the proselyte grows whole of the 
wound o{ circumcision they bring him to baptism, 
and being placed in the water, they again instruct 
him in some weis^htier and in some lio-hter com- 
mands of the Law ; which being heard, he plunges 
himself and comes up, and, behold ! he is an Israelite 
in all things. The women place a woman in the 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 191 

^vaters up to the neck, and two disciples of the 
wise men, standing without, instruct her about 
some lighter precepts of the Law and some weightier, 
while she in the mean time stands in the waters ; 
and then she plungeth herself, and they, turning 
away their faces, go out, W'hile she comes up out 
of the water. 

^' Now, w^hat that plunging was you may know" 
from those things which Maimonides speaks in 
Mikvaoth : ' Every person baptized must dip his 
whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one 
dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of 
the garments or body is mentioned, it means nothing 
else than the washing of the whole body ; for if 
any wash himself all over except the very tip of 
his little finger, he is still in his uncleanness.' '' ^ 
This by some is supposed to be the source of Chris- 
tian baptism. 

Jew^ish Proselyte Baptism by a Learned 
Rabbi now Officiating in a Congregation 
OF American Israelites. 

" 1. The Mikveh is a rabbinical institution of 
very ancient date. [Mikveh, a bath, a gathering 
of running waters.] 

^ Lightfoot^s Whole Works, vol. xi. pp. 59-61. London, 
1823. 



192 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

" 2. It must possess dimensions enabling a pei-son 
of average size to plunge into it, without leaving a 
particle of the body exposed. 

^* 3. The water must flow from the main source, 
and not be simply poured into it. 

^* 4. Persons voluntarily joining the Hebrew faith 
must make an immersion as described above, typi- 
cal of their having cleansed themselves of errone- 
ous ideas and of having become mentally regene- 
rated." This is a very old and a very complete 
immersion. 

A Jewish friend, of marked intelligence and of 
literary tastes, says of the writer of the above: 
'^He IS one of the purest and noblest followers 
of God's word that ever lived.'' 

Immersion in the New Testament. 

"Then went out to John Jerusalem, and all 
Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and 
were baptized of him in Jordan^ confessing their 
sins." Matt. iii. 5, 6. 

" Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto 
John to be baptized of him ; but John forbade him, 
saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and com- 
est thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto 
him, Suffer it to be so now : for thus it becometh us 
to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 193 

and Jesus when he was baptized went up straightway 
out of the water r Matt. iii. 13-16. 

"John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach 
the baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins ; 
and there went out to him all the land of Judea, and 
they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him rn 
the river Jordan, confessing their sins." Mark i. 4, 5. 

" And John also was baptizing in Enon near to Sa- 
lim, because there was much water there.^^ John iii. 23. 

"Therefore we are buried with him by baptism info 
death, that like as Christ was raised up from the 
dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also 
should walk in newness of life'' Rom. vi. 4. 

"Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are 
risen with him, through the faith of the operation 
of God." Col. ii. 12. 

Matthew savs that " Jerusalem, and all Judea were 
baptized in Jordan ;" he says that " when the Sa- 
viour was baptized he went up straightway out of the 
water J' Mark says that " all the land of Judea, and 
they of Jerusalem, were baptized by John in the river 
Jordan ;" and the apostle John declares that John the 
Baptist " was baptizing in Enon near to Salim, be- 
cause there was much water there,'' These baptisms 
were undoubted immersions. 

Professor Coleman, commenting on the words of 
Justin Martyr, " We then lead them [candidates for 
17 N 



194 THE 15APT1SM OF THE 

baptism] to a place Avliere there is water," says: 
**TIie conductiLig of the candidate to a place where 
there is water, and there baptizing him, instead of 
causing water to be brought, seems to intimate that at 
this time the Eastern Church, or at least the Church 
of Ephesus, had begun to baptize by immersion/' * 
If the professor is right in his conjecture about the 
mode of Justin's baptism, then every one baptized 
in the Jordan or at Enon ivas immersed. And as i^^ 
the New Testament there w^as ^^one Lord, one faith 
and 07ie baptism/' it would follow that all baptisms 
recorded in the New Testament were immersions. 

The great Dr. John Lightfoot says of John's ba|>- 
tism. '^ That the baptisin of John was hy plunging the 
body, after the same manner as the washing of xuiclean 
persons and the baptism of proselytes, seems to apjyear 
from those things ivhich are related of him — namelu. 
that he * baptized in Jordan f that he baptized * in 
EnoUy because there was much water there,' and thaf 
Christy being baptized, ' came up out of the water,' to 
which that seems to be parallel (Acts viii.), ^ Philiv 
and the eunuch went down into the water,"' ^ etc. That 
Dr. Lightfoot is right to us is certain. And if this 
statement appeared in some public journal, ** On thp 

^ Coleman- s Ancient ChriMianity Exemplified, p. 368. Phila- 
delphia, 1852. 

' LighlfooCs Whole Works, vol. xi. p 63. London, 1823. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 195 

second Sunday in May twenty-five persons were bap- 
tized in the Mississippi Kiver at Vicksburg," what 
person of intelligence would dream that they w^ere 
sprinkled or had water poured upon them? 

St. Jerome and Immersion. 

The monk of Palestine, who revised the New Tes- 
tament of the Latin Vulgate and translated the Old, 
was a power in the fourth century and for ages 
afterward. He was learned and pious and crotch- 
ety ; a troublesome neighbor, yet a blessing to the 
Church. He makes the following statement about 
trine immersion : 

"And many other things which are observed in 
the churches claim the authority of the written law 
for themselves, as in the font to plunge the head three 
times under the water J^ ^ 

Commenting on "one Lord, one faith, and one 
baptism," Eph. iv. 5, he asserts that 

"TFe are immersed three times, that the one mys- 
tery of the Trinity might appear." ^ 

^ In lavacro ter caput mergitaie. Aaver, LiLciferianoB, 
torn. iii. p. 63. Basle, 1516. 

^ Ter merginiur. Ihid., torn. ix. p. 109. 



196 THE BA.PTISM uiT THE 



NOKTH AFEICA. 

Tertullian on Baptism. 

Tertullian was born in Carthage A. d. 160, 
He was originally a lawyer, and had become a 
presbyter of the church in his native city. His 
style and his temper are stiff. He was so conscien- 
tious as to be crotchety. After A. d. 200 he joined 
the Montanists, who are said to have had an ex- 
aggerated opinion about the amount of the Spirit 
possessed by their founder. Before he became a 
follower of Montanus he wrote his tract on baptism. 
Tertullian, during and after his own time, enjoyed 
the warm regards of Christians, especially of Cyp- 
rian, the master-spirit of the Church in North Af- 
rica in the third century. Tertullian was a lowly 
Christian, as his last words in De Baptismo show. 
"Ask," he says, "and ye shall receive; seek, and 
ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto 
you ; and when you ask, I only pray that you would 
remember Tertullian the sinner." He was the first 
Christian writer who used the Latin tongue, and 
Tertullian composed the first work on baptism ever 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 197 

given to the world by a disciple of Jesus. In his 
treatise on baptism he says: 

" We little fish are born in the water. ^^ ^ " It is 
of no consequence whether (in baptism) a man is 
washed in the sea or in a pool, in a river or in a 
fountain^ in a lake or in the channel of a river ; nor 
is there any difference between those whom John im- 
mersed in the Jordan and those whom Peter immersed 
in the Tiber, ^^ ^ " The act of baptism itself belongs 
to the flesh, because we are immersed in water ; ^ its 
effect is spiritual, because we are freed from sins." 
^'Christ himself was immersed in the water "^ "It 
is one thing to be sprinkled or taken unawares by 
the violence of the sea, and another to be immersed 
by the disdpline of religion/' ^ Quoting from Paul's 
letter to the Corinthians about their controversies 
his saying that " He was not sent to immerse men, 

^ Nos pisciculi ... in aqua nascimur. De BaptismOj cap. 
1. Lipsise, 1839. 

^ Nulla distinctio est, mari quis an stagno, flumine an fonte, 
lacu an alveo diluatur. Nee quicquam refert inter eos, quos 
Joannes in Jordane et quos Petros in Tiberi tinxit. Ibid., 
cap. 4. 

^ Ipsius baptismi carnalis actus, quod in aqua mergimur. 
Ibid., cap. 7. 

* Christus ipse aqua tinguitur. Ibid., cap. 9. 

5 Aliud adspergi vel intercepi violentia maris, sliud tingui 
disciplina religionis. Ibid., cap. 12. 
17* 



198 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

but to preach," he says that " He should first 
preach, and then immerse, . . . He could lawfully 
immerse who had a right to preach." ^ Elsewhere 
in his works Tertullian says of baptism : '' But first 
in the church, under the management of the bishop, 
we bear some testimony that we have renounced the 
devil and his pomps and angels. Then, answering 
somewhat more fully than the Lord appointed in 
the Gospel, ive are immersed three times^^ 

" Our Saviour commanded us to immerse ^ into 
the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit ; not into oue 
person, and not once, but three times. At each 
name we are immersed * into each person^ 

^ Non ad tinguendum . . . licuit et tinguere. De BaptismOj 
cap. 14. 

2 Ter mergitamiir. De Corona, Patrol. Lat., vol. ii. p. 99. 
Migne. Parisiis. 

•^ Ut tinguerunt . . . in personassingulas tingiiimnr. Liher 
ad Prap., cap. 26 ; 76 td, ii. 213. 

* Tertullian, in his sixteen duodecimo pages on baptism, 
uses lingo forty-six times in the sense of dipping, and mergo, 
to immerse, abluo, to wash, and lavo, to bathe, ten times to 
describe baptismal immersion. Tingo and mergo, immergo 
and mergito, with Tertullian were identical in meaning. He 
uses iingo and mergito on this very page and in exactly the 
same sense. Tingo is used in the Vulgate when the rich man 
cries, " Father Abraham, have compassion upon me, and 
send Lazarus that he may dip (intingat) the tip of his finger 
into water and cool my tongue." Luke xvi. 24. Tingo is used 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 199 

in Matt. xxvi. 23 and in Mark xiv. 20 to express d^ppivg, 
lingo of St. Victor (Summa Sentent., tract v. cap. 3 ; Patrol. 
Lat, vol. 176, p. 130) quotes Gregory's letter to Leander as 
if he had said : '* There will be no fault in immersing {tingere) 
once or thrice, since in three immersions {mersionibus) the 
Trinity can be represented.'' With Hugo tingo and mergo 
meant, in baptism, the same immersion. Boniface, the apostle 
of the Germans, uses tingo in the same sense. He tells the 
English Abbess Eadburga about spirits which he saw in a 
vision, " some of which were dipped {tingehantur) as if the 
whole body were immersed " (mersare. Ep. Bonif,, 20 ; Script. 
Eccles., viii., Saec. Migne. Parisiis). In the beginnins: of 
the thirteenth century it lost, like baptize, the idea of mode 
entirely, and came to be employed as the compilers of the 
Catechism of the Council of Trent {Catech., pars ii. cap. 2, 
qusest. 17, p. 136. Lipsise, 1865) use it when they say : " For 
those who ought to be initiated by this sacrament are either 
plunged into water [in aquam merguntur)^ or water is poured 
upon them, or they are tinged (tinguntur) — that is, baptized — 
by sprinkling.'^ But for 1000 years in Latin Christian litera- 
ture tingo meant baptism by immersion, and it was used ap- 
parently in the first Latin version of the New Testament ever 
made. Jerome, in his revised New Testament of the Vulgate 
in the fourth century, transfers baptize in the commission, 
Matt, xxviii. 19. Tertullian, in Be Baptismo, cap. 13, in the 
end of the second century, quotes, most probably from the 
very earliest Latin translation, the sanie commission ; and 
^* baptizing them'' is immersing them {tingue rites). 



200 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

The Baptism of the Bishops of North Africa, 

A. D. 256. 

In that part of the world as early as the end of 
the second century Christians were numerous. In 
the middle of the third century a council was held 
in Carthage to settle the controversy then raging 
about rebaptizing heretics. The council was com- 
posed of eighty-five bishops. 

Each bishop gave his opinion, and Cyprian re- 
corded each declaration and numbered it. He was 
the leading prelate in the council, and he gives his 
decision last. Munnulus, Bishop of Girba, was the 
tenth speaker, and the following is his deliverance, 
as translated by a learned Episcopalian : ^ 

" The true doctrine of our holy mother, the Cath- 
olic Church, has always been with us, my brethren, 
and especially in the article of baptism, a7id the trine 
immersion wherewith it is celebrated, our Lord having 
said, ' Go ye and baptize the Gentiles in the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit, etc' " ^ Munnulus then proceeds to repudiate 
all baptisms administered by persons outside the 

^ St. CypriarCs Works, translated by Nath. Marshall, LL.B., 
Vicar of St. Vedastus, London, p. 241. London, 1717. 

^ Ve] et maxime baptism atis trinitate. Oypriaiii Opera, 
Cone. Carth., p. 230. Colonic, 1617. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 201 

Church. Cyprian breathes no word of dissent from 
the judgment of Munnulus ; and no living man in 
such a meeting was so likely to relieve his mind as 
the Bishop of Carthage. Tertullian, sixty years 
before in Carthage, wrote about baptism : We are 
immersed three times; and Cyprian, when asking for 
Tertullian's works, was accustomed to say, " Give 
me my master f so that an agreement on all great 
questions existed between the bishop and his master 
the presbyter. Seventy-five bishops followed Mun- 
nulus, and no one of them differed from him. 

St. Augustine of Hippo and Immersion. 

Augustine was a native of North Africa. His 
father's name was Patric, and his mother's Monica. 
Like the mothers of many other great men, Monica 
possessed remarkable talents, and she was a devoted 
Christian. For many years she labored unsuccess- 
fully for Augustine's conversion. His education, 
except in Greek, was respectable, and he became a 
popular teacher of rhetoric in Carthage, Rome, and 
Milan. His unconverted life was very immoral, 
and a considerable part of it was spent among the 
heretical Manichees. At Milan the discourses of 
the devout Ambrose led Augustine to the Saviour 
and to a holy life; and the Epistles of Paul the 
apostle were peculiarly blessed in shaping his opin 



202 THE BAPTISM OP^ THE 

ions and guiding his affections. He was baptized by 
Ambrose at Milan A. d. 387, in the thirty-second 
year of his age. In A. d. 395 he became Bishop of 
Hippo ; and from that obscure spot the light of Au- 
gustine's genius went abroad throughout the whole 
world. He died A. d. 430. 

Augustine for ages was the great Church teacher 
of Christendom ; ecclesiastics of all ages, Reformed, 
Papal, and Greek, have joyfully taken a place at his 
feet. John Calvin, and John Knox, and Arch- 
bishop Cranmer, and John Gill occupied the very 
spot on which famous popes and cardinals and doc- 
tors knelt before the mighty teacher of Hippo. No 
prelate, in the Papal chair or out of it, enjoyed the 
reverence accorded to Augustine for years during 
the later period of his life. He had some errors and 
a good many faults, but he was unquestionably at 
the head of the Christian churches in his day ; and 
he was without a superior, after the apostle of the 
Gentiles, before and since his day. He writes of 
baptism as follows, in his sermon on ^^ The Mysteries 
of Baptism " : 

" After you promised to believe we plunged your 
heads three times in the sacred fountain. This order 
of baptism is observed to express a double mystery ; 
for you have been rightly immersed three times who have 
received baptism in the name of *^^he Trinity, and you 



AGES ANT) THE XATIOXS. 203 

have been properly immersed three times who have 
received baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, who 
arose from the dead on the third day ; for that im- 
mersion thrice repeated gives a type of the three days' 
burial of the Lord, through which [immersion] ye 
are buried with Christ in baptism, and with Christ 
in faith, that, washed from sins, you may live in the 
sanctity of virtue by imitating Christ. Hence the 
blessed apostle says, 'Are ye ignorant that they who 
are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death? 
for we are buried with him by baptism into death, 
that as Christ w^as raised from the dead by the glory 
of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of 
life.' " ^ Such, undoubtedly, were the universal views 
of the mode of baptism and of its significance in 
Augustine's day. 

Some persons have doubted whether Augustine 
ever wrote our quotation. But, on the other hand, 
men of profound learning, like Bingham, the author 

^ Postquam vos credere promisistis tertio capita vestra in 
sacro fonte demersimus. Qui ordo baptismatis duplici mys- 
terii significatione celebratur. Eecte enim tertio mersi estis 
qui accepistis baptismum in nomine Trinitatis. Recte tertio 
mersi estis qui accepistis baptismum in nomine Jesus Christi, 
qui tertio die resurrexit a mortuis. Ilia enim tertio repetita 
demersio typum dominicse exprimit sepulturae. Per quam 
Cliri^to consepulti estis in baptismo. Tom. vi., appendix, 
Patrol Lai., vol. 40, pp. 1207, 1208. 



204 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

of Tkt intiquities of the Christian Church, have uu* 
hesitati ig\j received it as a genuine work of the 
great laacher of Hippo. The sentiments of the 
quotation were those of Ambrose, who baptized 
him, and of Jerome, his correspondent, which ap- 
pear in this volume, and of the whole of orthodox 
Christendom at this period. 

Baptism of Epidophorus, in Carthage, in the 
Fifth Century. 

In that highly respectable authority, the Centurice 
Magdeburgenses, it is written : 

"Victor, in the Vandalian persecution, mentions 
in his third book a certain Epidophorus, who was 
baptized in Carthage, whom Milrita, a venerable 
deacon, received as regenerated from the inside of 
the fonty ^ He was in the font, and of course im- 
mersed in his baptism, and Milrita received him as 
one born again from the cavity of the font. 

Premasius, Bishop of Adrumeta, on Baptism. 

This prelate lived in the sixth century, and pre- 
sided over a diocese in North Africa. In his com- 
mentary, at Rom. vi. 4, he writes: 

" So that in this way from sons of perdition we 

' De alveo fontis generatum. Ceitu, Magde.y iv. p. 573. 
Noriml)erg8e, 1765. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 205 

are made sons of adoption. We die beforehand to 
our former nature by a second birth. And whilst 
we are immersed in an element allied to earth 
[water], we are buried; and whilst we arise from 
the heart of the font, we are quickened ; and from 
this the sacrament of baptism is very great ; and 
therefore [Paul] says, * We are buried with him 
by baptism into death.' "^ 

^ Submergimur . . . sepelimur ; dum e sinu fontis assur- 
giraus. Ad Epist. a Rom. Comm., Patrol. Lit, vol. 68, p. 444. 
Migne. Parisiis. 
18 



206 THE EAFllSM OF THE 



EGYPT. 

A Baptism by Athanasius. 

The immortal defender of the divinity of the 
Saviour when a hoy baptized some other boys in 
sport. The story is told by Sozomen/ Socrates,'^ and 
by Dean Stanley, chiefly on the authority of Ru- 
finus. Stanley says : 

"Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, was enter- 
taining his clergy in a tower or lofty house overlook- 
ing the expanse of sea beside the Alexandrian 
harbor. He observed a group of children playing 
on the edge of the shore, and was struck by the 
grave appearance of their game. His attendant 
clergy went, at his orders, to catch the boys and 
})ring them before the bishop, who taxed them with 
having played at religious ceremonies. At first, 
like all boys caught at a mischievous game, they 
denied, but at last confessed that they had been 
imitating the sacrament of baptism — that one of 
them had been selected to perform the part of 
bishop, and that he had duly dipped them in the sea 

^ Sozomen, lib. ii. cap. 17. ^ Socrates, lib. i. cap. 15. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 207 

with all the proper- questmis and addresses, Wlieu 
Alexander found that these forms had been ob- 
served, he determined that the baptism was valid ; 
he himself added the consecrating oil of confirma- 
tion, and was so much struck with the knowledge 
and gravity of the boy-bishop that he took hiiO 
under his charge. This little boy was Athanasius.'' ^ 
Notwithstanding the doubts of some, Dean Stanley 
is right in saying that " the story has every indica- 
tion of truth." 

The Copts and Immersion. 

The Copts number about 150,000. They are the 
descendants of the ancient Egyptians of Joseph's 
time, and they form a Christian community to which 
the Abyssinians belong. Their chief prelate is the 
Patriarch of Alexandria, whose residence is in 
Cairo. They regularly choose for the Abyssinians 
their highest ecclesiastical ruler, called the " Abuna," 
when the office is vacant. The antiquity of their 
race and some religious peculiarities make them a 
remarkable people. The Eight Eeverend Kichard 
Pococke, Lord Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland, de- 
scribing their customs, says : 

^'At baptism they plunge the child three times into 

^ Stanley^s History of the Eastern Church, p. 324. New 
York, 1870. 



208 THE BAPTLSI\[ OF THE 

the water, then confirm it and give it the sacra- 
ment." ^ A more recent and unquestionable author- 
ity says : " The Copts baptize by immersion, and prac- 
tise unction, exorcism, and auricular confession." ^ 

* Compendium of Modern Travels, vol. ii. p. 30. Dublin, 
1757. 
' Chambers^ s Encydopcedia, Philadelphia, 1870. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 209 



ABYSSINIA. 

Immersions in Abyssinia, Doubtful and 
Keliable. 

James Bruce, the celebrated Scotch traveller, 
who visited Abyssinia a little over one hundred 
years since, and whose descriptions of the country, 
the people, and their customs have been so fre- 
quently confirmed in our own times, gives an ac- 
count of the baptismal rites of the Abyssinians. 
In this part of his work he quotes the narrative 
of a sort of annual commemoration of the Sa- 
viour's baptism, published by Alvarez, chaplain 
to the Portuguese embassy under Don Kodrigo de 
Lima, which reads: 

" Before the pond a scaffold was built, covered 
around with planks, within which sat the king 
looking toward the pond, his face covered with 
blue taffeta, while an old man, who was the king's 
tutor, was standing in the water up to the shoul- 
ders, naked as he was born, and half dead with 
cold, for it had frozen violently in the night. All 
those that came near him he took by the head and 
plunged them in the water, whether men or women, 
J8* 



210 THE BAPTL^M OF THE 

saying in his own language, ' I baptize you in the 
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit/ " ^ 

Bruce advances a number of plausible reasons 
why the account of Alvarez should be discredited. 
We have no desire to take sides in the controversy 
between the two travellers. If Alvarez tells the 
truth, the baptism he describes is a baptism by im- 
tiiersion. If he is indebted to a fertile imagination 
for his facts, his story shows that he knew well how 
nn Abyssinian baptism should be performed, as we 
shall presently see. He would not have represented 
a mass of his own countrymen as being baptized in 
his day by plunging them in a pond. 

Baptisms seen by Bruce Himself. 

" But this I can bear witness of," says our intel- 
ligent traveller, " that at no time when I was pres- 
ent — and I have been present above a hundred times 
at the baptisms of both adults and infants, ay, a7id of 
apostates too — and I never heard other words pro- 
nounced than the orthodox baptismal ones, ^ I bap- 
tize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost,' immerging the child in pure water, 
into which they first pour a small quantity of oil of 
olives in the form of a cross." ^ Immerging is only 

* Bruce's Travels, vol. iii. pp. 667, 668. Dublin, 1791. 

' Ibid., vol. iii. p. 663. 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 211 

an older English form of the Latin word immergo, 
to immerse, as the poet says: 

•' Ye dying sons of men, 
Immerged in sin and woe " — 

that is, overwhelmed, immersed, in sin and woe. 

No one acquainted with Bruce's perspicacity and 
veracity would doubt his account of an occurrence 
which he saw but once, and still less would he hesi- 
tate to believe his description of an event which he 
had seen " above a hundred times ;" and so many 
times Bruce had seen persons immerged in Abyssinia 
when baptized. In one of his journeys he writes : 
"At half-past eight we began a gradual descent, at 
first easily enough, till we crossed the small brook 
Maitemquet, or the water of baptism.'^ ^ 

When a brook or creek is called the water of hap- 
tism, it must refer to immersion as the mode of that 
l^aptism from which its name is derived. 

1 Bruce^s Travels, vol. iii. p. 488. Dublin, 179L 



212 THE BAPTISM OF THE 



CONCLUSION 

The testimony examined makes it certain that 
Augustine immersed King Ethelbert and ten thou- 
sand of his subjects on Christmas Day, that Paulinus 
immersed King Edwin and thousands of his subjects 
at one time, and that immersion was the mode of 
baptism commonly used in England till the Eefor- 
mation. It shows that Clovis, with three thousand 
soldiers and with many women and children, was 
immersed by St. Remigius in Rheims, and that im- 
mersion was the mode of baptism in France till at 
least the end of the twelfth century. It shows that 
the great baptisms of St. Boniface were immersions, 
and that all succeeding baptisms for about five 
hundred years in Germany were administered in 
the same way. It shows that Vladimir the Great 
and the whole population of Kieff were immersed 
on the introduction of Christianity into Russia, and 
that immersion is the mode of baptism universally 
observed by the whole Russian Church down till this 
hour. It shows that in Italy, the land of the popes, 
immersion was the custom of the Roman Catholic 
Church till the twelfth century had passed, and that 



AGES AND THE NATIONS. 213 

the ancient form is still observed in Milan ; and it 
shows that in Spain, Turkey, Greece, Persia, North 
Africa, Egypt, Abyssinia, and Palestine immersion 
was once universal, and that in some of these coun- 
tries it is still the only baptism recognized. In 
shorty immersion was universal over all the churches 
of the West for twelve himdred years after Christ, 
and it is at this hour the baptism of the various sects 
of the Eastern Church. 

The baptism of the three thousand on the day 
of Pentecost has often been disputed, because of the 
difficulty of immersing them ; but the missionaries 
of Russia, Germany, France, England, and Ireland 
baptized an equal number, or four times as many, 
at one time, in wells, rivers, baptisteries, or foun- 
tains, just as persons were baptized in New-Testa- 
ment times. 

Sometimes immersion is represented as the prac- 
tice of only an insignificant fraction of Chris- 
tians. About onefourth of all the Christians on 
earth administer baptism only by immersion 7iow ; 
and as the whole Christian w^orld immersed for 
twelve centuries, and a fourth part of it has im- 
mersed ever since the end of the twelfth century, 
it is probable that a great majority of all the persons 
that ever bore the Christian name, regarding immer- 
sion as the only divinely-appointed mode of baptism^ 



214 THE BAPTISM OF THE 

were plunged in the sacramental waters. So that if 
truth were established by the number of its ad- 
herents, the living and the dead would give us the 
majority. 

The Baptist denomination in this country is in- 
creasing at a very rapid rate. With little or no 
aid from emigration, with an army of prejudices 
assailing us all around, by the grace of God we 
have spread over this goodly land, until from 471 
churches in 1784 we have now, in 1878, 23,908 
churches, Avith a membership of 2,024,224/ We 
have forty-two colleges and theological seminaries, 
and fifty academies with instructors of a high order 
to impart literary and theological knowledge to stu- 
dents of all denominations. We have twenty-nine 
weekly newspapers, five semi-monthly, and thirteen 
monthly. We have divinely-honored missions in 
Burmah, China, Japan, Germany, Sweden, France, 
Spain, Africa, Italy, and among the white men of 
the West, and in the Indian territories. We have 
principles as pure as Jehovah's word, and we have 
unlimited confidence in their divine Author; and as 
a result our people plan and foster a spirit of holy 

^ For facts and figures in regard to onr history, growth, 
and numbers in this country see The Baptists in the United 
States, by George W. Anderson, I). D., and The American 
Baptist Year- Book, Philadelphia. 



AGES AND THE NATIOXS. 215 

enterprise that stops at no difficulty, and that is 
ready for any undertaking, however gigantic, that 
promises to honor God ; and abounding success has 
followed our sacrifices and exertions. Our views 
of the mode and subjects of baptism have entered 
Pedobaptist communities, and as a consequence the 
baptism of infants has been declining rapidly for 
years, and the practice of immersion is believed to 
be largely on the increase ; and the conviction that 
it is the original mode of baptism, observed by the 
Saviour and enjoined upon his servants, is now quite 
common. 

Immersionists have no disposition to surrender 
their revealed mode of baptism. In the East and 
in Russia the people would make any sacrifice — 
even give up their lives — rather than surrender 
New-Testament dipping. In England our honored 
brethren, notwithstanding the lax views on the 
Lord's Supper supposed to prevail among many of 
them, stand firmly where their fathers planted them- 
selves, and demand Bible baptism. In this country 
our people at this moment are more a unit in utterly 
refusing any countenance to pouring or sprinkling 
than probably at any period in our history. One- 
fourth of Christendom demands immersion for all 
the servants of Jesus with a resolute voice ; and with 
the history of the Church during the first twelve 



216 BAPTISM OF THE AGES AKB XATIOKS. 

hundred years of its existence wholly on their side, 
with the Scriptures, and Jehovah who gave them, 
leading on their heroic warriors to battle, their 
triumph is certain, though for a season it may be 
deferred. For long ages the doctrine of justification 
by faith was buried under a vast mass of Eomish 
fables and soul-destroying heresies. This mountain 
was high and broad and heaven-defying, but the 
truth under it had volcanic power. In Luther's 
time the mountain began to heave, the buried power 
of a Saviour's merits tore an opening from its base 
to its top, and the laboring volume of burning love, 
rising up through its hardened strata, burst its 
sides and scattered them to the four winds of 
heaven, and sent the doctrines of glowing love over 
the nations. And now the true mode of baptism is 
buried deeply from three-fourths of the Christian 
family. For six hundred long years it has slept 
in its grave ; but, like justification by faith, it will 
surely spring to life again — the trumpet of the great 
angel guardian of truth will yet be sounded, and 
the divinely-given baptism will come forth from the 
buried past and take its place in all the churches 
of Jesus everywhere, and one Lord, one faith, and 
one baptism will become the creed of reunited and 
purified evangelical Christendom. 



INDEX. 



Abelard, 101. 

Ablution after baptism, 182, 189. 

Abuna, tbe, 207. 

Adgefin, 30. 

Africa, North, baptism in, 200. 

A^lbofledis, sister of Clovis, 85, 90. 

Alcock, Lord John, Bishop of Ely, 
42. 

Alcuin, 26, 32, 81, 86, 116, 117, 123, 
124. 

Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, 
206. 

Alnwick Castle, 27. 

Alphin, son of Eochaid, 65. 

Alvarez, 209. 

Araalgaidh, 6.S, 67. 

Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 56, 102, 
119, 187, 141, 201, 202, 204. 

America, baptism in, 71. 

American Baptist Historical So- 
ciety, 7. 

American Baptist Year-Book, 214. 

Anderson, Rev. Dr. Geo. W., 8, 214. 
account of baptistery in Paris 
by, 91. 

Anlaf, baptism of, 37. 

Anna, wife of Vladimir, 155. 

Annotations of the Westminster 
Assembly, 47. 

Anointing after baptism, 207. 

Anointing at baptism, 159, 165, 173, 
179, 181, 187. 

Anselra, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 70. 

Anschar, St., 3, 109. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 77. 

Arator, 144. 

Arcadius, 167. 

Allans on immersion, 146. 

Armenians, 188. 

Arnold, Rev. Br. A. N., 8, 175, 183. 

Arrhenius, Claudius, 110. 

Arthur, son of Henry VII., 40. 

19 



Athalaric, King, 144. 

Athanasius, 206. 

Athelwold, Duke, 38. 

Atticus, 138. 

Augustine of Hippo, 3, 18, 19, 2i, 

99, 102, 182, 137, 201, 212. 
Auxentius, 141. 
Avitus of Vienne, 81. 

B. 

Baptism, Abyssinian, 210. 

Ambrose on, 141. 

among the Armenians, 189. 

Arator on, 145. 

Augustine on, 202. 

by H. W. Beecher, 72. 

by immersion, 5, 7, 170, 189. 

by martyrdom, 139. 

by pope at Easter, 154. 

bv pouring water, 125. 

Ciinic, 184, 135. 

Council of Celichyth on, 34. 

deferred till near death, 110. 

emblem of the etfusion of the 
Holy Ghost, 55. 

Gregory's mode of, 86. 

Hincmar of Rheims on, 94. 

how first administered in Eng- 
land, 32. 

in Athens, 170. 

in the Dnieper, 157. 

in Ireland, 62. 

in rivers or fountains, 124. 

in Russian Church, 159. 

Leidradus on, 93. 

Leo the Great on, 143. 

Lombard, Peter, on, 102. 

Martyr, Justin, on, 140, 193. 

martyrdom a baptism, 139. 

miraculous, 186. 

mode of, 3. 

Munnulus on, 200. 

of Albofledis, 85, 90. 

of ancient Roman Christians, 59, 

217 



218 



INDEX. 



Baptism of Athaiiasi is, 266. 

of Clovis, 79, 82, 86, 88. 

of "Constitutions and Canons," 
165. 

of converts by each other, 20, 23. 

of Copts, 207. 

of Epidophorus, 204. 

of Eimomians, 169. 

of Greek Church, 6, 52. 

of Hastein, 95. 

of Jesus, 192. 

of Jewess, 130. 

of Jewish proselyte, 190. 

of Mercians, 32. 

of paralytic Jew, 138. 

of pirate, 96. 

of Primitive Church, 54. 

of robbers by Patrick, 69. 

of Saxons, 121. 

of seven kings, 63, 66, 67. 

of son of Prince Milan, 185. 

of ten tliousand in one day, 19. 

of twins, 58. 

of upper part of body only, 56. 

place of, 57. 

Pococke. R., on, 207. 

Premasius on, 204. 

profanation of, 38. 

remission of sins by, 134. 

t<alvation bv, 160. 

Stanley, Dr. A. P., on, 151. 

svmbol of the grave and resur- 
' rection, 94, 98, 107, 131. 

Tertullian on, 196, 199. 
Baptist denomination, its increase, 

214. 
Baptistery in Plymouth Church, 73. 

in Home, 91. 

of Clovis, 85, 91. 

of St. John Lateran, 152. 
Baptisteries, 57, 58. 

at Bradford, England, 59. 

subterranean, 59. 
Baptizo, 6, 183. 
Basil, 56. 
Basiliciis, 57. 
Bee, monasterv of, 38. 
Bede, 24, 26, 3(). 

on immersion, 33. 
Beecher, Rev, Henry Ward, bap- 
tism by, 72. 
Bingham, Joseph, 54, 203. 
Blackburn, Dr., 63. 
Blackmore, Rev. R. W., 157. 
Blake, Rev. Thomns, 44. 
Boniface, 3, 112. 199, 212. 
Bradford in Yorkshire, England, 
baptistery at, 59. 



Britons, ancient, conversion of, 18. 
Brown, " Hist, of St. Peter's Church 

of York," 27. 
Bruce, James, 209, 210. 
Bruno, St., 127. 
Bucknell Library, 7. 

o. 

Caedwalla, 32. 

Calvin, John, 132, 202. 

Camden, 29. 

Canterbury, letter from a gentle- 
man in, 21. 

Caroticus, or Carodoc, 64. 

Cartan, baptism of, 68. 

Carthage, Council of, 200. 

Carthen opposes St. Patrick, 68. 

Cassanus, King of the Tartars. 186. 

Cave, William, 134. 
"Primitive Christianity," 49, 57. 

Cean Croithi, the Irish idol, 67. 

Celibacy, 164. 

Chalmers, Dr., on baptism, 48. 

Charlemagne, 92. 93, 117, 122. 

Child's name not spoken till the 
moment of baptism, 171. 

Christening of Prince Arthur and 
Princess Margaret, 40. 

"Chronicon Alexandrinum," 57. 

Chrysostom, 55, 135, 167. 

Clark, Rev. Mr., 133. 

Clemens Romanus, 57. 

Clinic baptism, 134. 

Clinics, 126, 136. 

Clovis, 3, 79, 80, 82, 212. 

Coleman, Rev. Lyman, on immer- 
sion, 75, 140, 141, 193. 

Coleman of Westminster Assem* 
bly, 45. 
called " Rabbi," 46. 

Consecration of the fountain be- 
fore baptism, 123. 

Constantino the Great, 137, 152, 
164. 

"Constitutions and Canons of the 
Holy Apostles," 163. 

Copts, the, 207. 

Corbie, monastery of, 109. 

Corcothemne, 67. 

Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, 135. 

Council of Celichyth on baptism, 34. 
of Neo-Caesarea, 135. 
of Trent, Catechism of, 149. 
of Toledo, 105, 106. 

Cranmer, Archbishop, 202. 

Croagh Patrick, 67. 

Crozer Theological Seminary, 7. 



INDEX. 



219 



Crucifix iu the Lady's Well, Nor- 
thumberland, 29. 
Cyprian, 137, 139, 196, 200, 201. 
Cyril of Jerusalem, 55, 159. 

D. 

Dell'GE signifying baptism, 127. 
Dionvsius Exiguus, 56, 166. 
Dunstan, St., 35. 
Dupin, 22, 82, 103. 
Dwight, Kev. H. G. 0., 1S8. 

E. 

Eadbuega, 199. 
Edward IV., 43. 
PJdwin, King, baptized by Pauli- 

iius, 26, 212. 
Klfege, Bishop of "Winchester, 38. 
Elizabeth, Queen, 43. 
Elipaudus, 93. 
England, immersion practised in, 

18. 
English rear temples in Britain, 18. 
Epidophorus, 204. 
Epiphanius, 55, 56. 
Eric, or Horicus, King, 110. 
Ethclbert, 3, 20, 21, 37, 212. 

immersion of, 35. 

wife of, 18. 
Eudoxia, 167. 
Eiilogius, 19. 
Eunomians, 56, 169. 
Eusebius, 135. 



Fasting before baptism, 128, 165. 
Felix, 93. 
Font, 57. 

St. Martin's Church, Canterbury, 
36. 

St. Patrick's, 67. 
Fositeland, fountain in, 116. 
France, baptism in, 79. 
Fridegod on immersion, 35. 
Frith, John, 53. 
Fulbert. St., 97. 

Fuller, Dr. Thomas, " Church His- 
tory," 20. 

G. 

Gallus. Bishop of Clermont, 82. 
Garbaniis, death and resurrection 

of, 69. 
Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick, 70. 
Giles, Dr. J. A., 26, 37. 



Gill, Dr. John, 202. 

Gocelin, 22. 

Godfather in Greek Church, 172. 

Greek Church, baptism in, 6, 52, 

163. 
Green's "History of the English 

People," 20. 
Gregory the Great, 19, 24, 25, 32, 99, 

100, 103, 106, 107, 145. 
Gregory II., 113, 114. 
Gregory VII., 142. 
Gregory Nyssa, 166. 
Gregory of Tours, 81, 82, 85. 
Gualdo, 109. 
Gubelmann, Kev. J. S., 8, 130. 

H. 

Haebottle, Tillage of, 27. 

Harduin's Oynciliorum CoUectio, 35 

Hastein, baptism of, 95. 

Haymo, 100, 124. 

Hercus, baptism of, 62. 

Hilary, 102. 

Hillegenbach, the brook. 111. 

Hincmar of Rheims, 81, 88, 94. 

Hincmar of Laon, 94. 

Holy wells of Ireland, 64. 

Holystone, village of, 30. 

Horicus, King, 110. 

Hugo of St. Victor, 99, 199. 



I. 



Immergo, 211. 
Immersion, 165, 213, 215. 

Abelard on, 101, 209. 

Alcuin on, 117. 

Aquinas on, 77. 

Arian theory of, 146. 

Arnold, Dr., on, 183. 

baptisms by, 212. 

Bede on, 33*. 

Bingham, Joseph, on, 54. 

Bruno on, 127. 

by Augustine, 24. 

by Beeeher, Rev. K. W., 72. 

by Boniface, 117. 

by Clark, Rev. Mr., 133. 

by Copts, 208. 

by heretics, 55. 

by Roman Catholics at Milan, 150 

by Patrick, 69. 

bv the Starovers, 161. 

Calvin on, 132. 

Cave, William, on, 48. 

Clirysosiom on, 168. 

Cole'n)an on, 74. 



220 



INDEX. 



Immersion, Dupin on, 103 

in England in 1644, 44. 

Fourth Council of Toledo on, 108, 
125. 

Fridegod on. 35. 

Frith, John, on, 53. 

Fulbert, St., on, 97. 

Gilbert on, 70. 

Gregory the Great on, 119, 125, 145. 

Gregory of Nyssa on, 167. 

Hay mo on, 100. 

Hugo of St. Victor on, 99. 

in Abyssinia, 209. 

in St. John Lateran, 153. 

in Greek Church, 184. 

in milk, 70. 

in New Testament, 192. 

in Pomerania, 127. 

in reign of Bloody Mary, 43. 

in rivers, 32. 

in thirteenth century, 78. 

in Westminster Assembly, 44. 

Isidore on, 105. 

Ivo on, 99. 

Lambecius on. 111. 

Lanfranc on, 38. 

Leidradus on, 93. 

Leo the Great on, 142. 

Lombard, Peter, on, 102. 

Luther on, 129, 130, 131. 

Magnus, Archbishop, on, 92. 

Maxentius of Aquila on, 148. 

Maximus of Turin on, 143. 

Maurus, Rabanus, on, 123. 

Milman on, 58. 

of adults in Russian Church, 162. 

of Clovis, 81. 

of infants, 76. 

of Jewish proselyte, 191, 192. 

of three thousand, 213. 

only baptism for those in health, 
139. 

only legal baptism in England, 60. 

Philostorgius on, 169. 

Pullus, Cardinal, on, 39. 

Regiuo on, 126. 

Roman Catholic Church and, 2, 
149. 

Rupert on, 128. 

Strabo, Wilafrid, on, 124. 

Theodulphus on, 93. 

trine, 32, 39, 40, 43, 50, 56, 59, 70, 
75, 87, 90, 92-94, 97-99, 101, 103, 
104, 106, 116, 118, 123-125, 129, 
130, 132, 142-144, 147, 148, 159, 
160, 166, 168, 173, 187, 189, 195, 
198-200, 202, 207. 
not in the Bible, 16. 



only a tradition, 17. 

origin of, 16. 

reasons for, 57. 

Wall on, 51, 53. 

Wesley on, 71. 

when practised, 15. 
Immersions recorded by Father 

O'Farrell, 66. 
Innocent III, 142. 
Inscription on a subterranean bap- 
tistery, 59. 
Ireland, 22. 

early baptism in, 62. 
Isidore, St., 105. 
Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, 98. 



James IV. of Scotland, 42. 
Jerome, 16, 56, 102, 119, 195, 199, 204. 
John, baptism of, 193, 194. 
John the apostle on baptism, 193. 
Jones, Alfred T., Esq., 8. 
Justin Martyr, 140, 193. 

K. 

Kartzoff, Consul, 185. 
Kent, missionaries in, 19. 
Kherson, capture of, 455. 
Kidnapping of converts, 64. 
Kietf, baptism at, 3, 156. 
Killala, 63. 
Knox, John, 202. 
Kohl, 159. 

L. 

Labbe and Cossart's " Sacrorum 

Concilioruin," 107. 
Lady's Well, Northumbria, 28, 66. 
Lambecius, Peter, 110. 
Landeheldis, sister of Clovis, 90. 
Lanfranc, 38. 
Lawrence, St., 125, 126. 
Leander, 32, 100, 103, 107, 119, 146. 
letter of Gregory to, 120, 125, 147, 

199. 
Leidradus on baptism, 93. 
Leland, 40, 42. 
Leo III., 92. 

Leo the Great, 98, 99, 119, 142, 143. 
Lightfoot, Dr. John, 45, 190, 194. 
Loigles, the fountain, 62. 
Lombard, Peter, 102. 
Long Parliament, 47. 
Lothaire, Emperor, 148. 
Louis the Pious, 93. 
Luther, 129, 130, 216. 



INDEX. 



221 



M. 

Macarius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 

159. 
McGeoghegan's, Abbe, " History 

of Ireland," 64. 
Magnus, Archbishop, 92. 
Maimonides, 191. 

Maitland's "Church in the Cata- 
combs," 59. 
Maitemquet, the brook, 211. 
Malcom, Rev. Dr. H., 8, 150. 
Manichees, 201. 

Margaret, Princess, baptism of, 42. 
Mark on baptism, 193. 
Marshall, 46. 
Martyrdom considered baptism, 

139 
Mary, Bloody, 43. 
Matthew on baptism, 193. 
Matthew of Westminster, 186. 
Maxentius of Aquila, 148. 
Maximus, Bishop of Turin, 143. 
Meletius, Patriarch of Antioch, 167. 
Michelet, 70. 
Mikveh, the, 191. 
Milan, Prince of Servia, 185. 
Milan, sprinkling not practised in, 

151. 
Milk, immersion in, 70. 
Milman on immersion, 58. 
Milosh, 185. 
Milrita, 204. 
^liracle performed by Patrick, 65, 

67. 
Miraculous filling of a baptistery, 

85. 
Monica, 201. 
Montanists, the, 196. 
Mosaic in St. John Lateran, 153. 
Mouravieff, 157, 159. 
Munnulus, Bishop of Girba, 200. 

N. 

Neagh, Lough, 68. 

Neal, 44. 

Neander, 111, 128. 

Nennius, 63. 

Nestorian baptismal service, 187. 

Northumberland, 3. 

Novatian's baptism, 135, 138. 



Oak consecrated to Jupiter, 112. 
Oath taken by German bishop to 
obey the popes, 113, 116. 
19* 



O'Farrell, Rev. Michael J., 66. 
"Office of Baptism of Greek 

Church," 175. 
Ordo Romanus, 56. 
Origen, 163. 
Osway, 32. 
Othlon, 112. 
Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, 127. 



Paganus, 186. 

Parker, Mr., baptism of child of, 71. 

Patric, 201. 

Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, 3. 

baptism by, 62, 63, 64. 

conversion of, 69. 

destroys the Irish idol, 67. 

fountain of, 65. 

and the robbers, 68. 
Paul the apostle on baptism, 54, 55, 

132 
Paulinus, 3, 20, 26, 27, 30, 66, 212. 
Penda, 32. 

Perune the idol, 155, 156. 
Peter, 57. 

Philip and the eunuch, 194. 
Philostorgius, 169. 
Photius, 169. 
Pius v., 149. 
Placilla, Empress, 167. 
Pococke, Richard, 207. 
Premasius, Bishop of Adnimeta, 

204. 
Pullus, Cardinal, on immersion, 39. 

R. 

Rabanus Maurus, 123, 124. 
Regeneration required before bap- 
tism, 69. 
Regino, 126. 
Regiiarius, 90. 

Remigius, St., 3, 20, 83, 86, 89, 212. 
Richerus, 95, 96. 
Rimbertus, 109. 
Roger of Wendover, 37. 
Roderigo de Lima, 209. 
Roman Christians, baptism of, 59. 
Rowland, Rev. A. J., 8, 152. 
Rupert, 128. 



s. 



Sacram^ntarium, Gregory's, 56. 
Sadlier, D. and J., 66. 
St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, 
65. 



222 



INDEX. 



Salfeld, Christopher, 131. 
Samson, an Irish presbyter, 114. 
" Sarum Manual," 53. 
Saxons, baptism of, 121. 
Scandinavians, 3. 
Scandinavian immersions, 109. 
Sheppy, Isle of, 22. 
Sicamber, 85, 89. 
Silvester, 85, 89. 
Sinn, fountain of, 67. 
Sisenand, King, 106. 
Socrates, 138, 206. 
Sozomen, 206. 
Spain, baptism in, 105, 118, 
Spring in York Cathedral, 27. 
Sprinkling, 132, 149, 151. 

discussed in Westminster Assem- 
bly, 45. 

its validitv denied by Greek 
Church, 184. 

sometimes used, 43, 75. 
Stanley, Dean, 151, 156, 184, 206. 
Starovers, 161. 
Statue of Paulinus, 28. 
Strabo, Wilafrid, 124, 166. 
Swale, the Biver, in Kent, 21, 22. 
Swale, the, in Northumberland, 31. 
Sweyn, King of the Danes, 37. 
Synod of Vladimir, 159. 

T. 

Taylor, Bayard, describes a bap- 
tism, 170. 

Ten thousand baptized in one day, 
19. 

Tertullian, 15, 56, 196, 199, 201. 

Theodoret, 56. 

Theodoric, King of Italy, 105. 

Theodulphus, 93. 

Three thousand baptized by Pauli- 
nus, 27. 

Tiovulfingacestir, 31. 

Tirawly, 67. 

Tobur-en-adare, well of, 63, 68. 

Todd, Dr., " Life of Patrick," 62. 

Trent, baptism in the, 31. 

Triforked candle symbol of *^he 
Trinity, 171. 



Trinity, invocation of the, In bap- 
Usm, 114, 123, 148. 

u. 

Usher, Archbishop, 65. 

V. 

Vedastus, St., 86. 
, Victor, 204. 

Vigilius, Pope, 144. 
I Vladimir the Great, 3, 155, 212. 
his miraculous restoration of 
sight, 157. 
Vows taken by the candidate for 
baptism, 58. 

w. 

Walker on baptism, 43. 

Wall, Bev. William, "History of 

Infant Baptism," 51. 
Wall, Bev. James, 91. 
Wash, use of the word in baptism, 

113, 114, 115, 140, 145. 
Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, 43. 
Welsh, Mary, baptism of, 71. 
Wesley, baptism of two children 

recorded by, 71. 
Westminster Assembly of Divines, 

44. 
Whirlpool, 24, 32. 
William the Conqueror, 38. 
William of Malmesbury, 22, 35. 
Willibrord, 112, 116, 117. 
Winfrid. See Boniface. 
Wooden church built bv King 

Edwin at York, 27. 
Woodlock, Monsignor, 66. 

Y. 

York, baptism at, 26. 

z. 

Zacharias, or Zachary, Pope, 102, 
f 113. 114. 



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